The Seven Revels

Acknowledgments

This is part of the book I've been most excited to write. I've always wanted to do a dedication page of sorts. When I started this book nearly a year ago, it was completely different than what it eventually evolved into. The idea was underdeveloped, hardly even an idea. I wanted to finish my other book before I got too invested in anything else, but something about The Seven Revels pulled me in and refused to let me go again.

I'm dedicating this book to my brother, because it was through him that the idea began to form and because of him that the book became what it is now.

When I first got the idea for this book, I was standing outside of my old high school after attending a dance concert, freezing my ass off waiting for my brother to pick me up to go to dinner. My friends had hung around with me for a little while but eventually got hungry and left me by myself. They closed the school and locked it for the night and I was left standing on the street, alone in the cold and the dark. What a wonderful place to brainstorm and daydream. I began to imagine that I was the only person left on the planet. Afraid to enter any buildings because of what I might find, which was why I was standing outside, despite the freezing cold. But that world started to feel just a little bit lonely and I began to imagine that there was someone there with me.

I've had the idea of Indigo and Milo as characters for about two years now, but they've also evolved far beyond what I could ever have imagined when I first created them. Originally, Indigo was going to be a Dragon-Human hybrid in a world that despised dragons. Milo was her trusty human friend and love. The brief story I had written for them didn't ever exceed three pages, but I loved a lot of what I wrote in it. Indigo's self doubt reflected my own and Milo was the stabilizing force I feel we all need in life. I put the characters in storage for later because I felt that that original story was not where they belonged.

As I stood outside my old high school waiting for my brother to come get me, I started to think about Milo again. As I wrote dialogue in my mind of a post-apocalyptic Earth, I began to refer to my 'companion' as Milo. I stood outside that school that night for over an hour before my brother arrived, but I'm grateful for every second of it.

I started to write the story a few days later. It was originally titled The Forgotten, and was going to follow Indigo and Milo after being left behind in the end of the world. I wrote the first chapter a few times, but something about it didn't feel right. It always started with Indigo in the cornfields and her grandmother dying. Something told me Nana would never just keel over and die like that.

Fast forward about a month to Christmas of 2015. My brother and I sat beside each other in a van going from the airport in Cancún to the resort we'd be staying at for the next week. I pulled out my laptop and handed it to him, asking him to read what I had written and to give me feedback. He took about a half hour to scroll through the chapter I had begun and thought about it, then he said, "How'd everybody die?"

"Electromagnetic pulses or something," I replied. "I don't really know yet."

At that point, he educated me on Coronal Mass Ejections and the potentially detrimental effects they could have on Earth's ecosystems. I found what he said to be very intriguing and changed that part of the story. But what really shaped the story was what he said next.

"Why don't they leave too? You should write a story about space."

It made total sense. How could I ever pass something like that up? Something that opened up entirely new universes for me to work with? There was no way I was going to let this one slip through my fingers. I wrote the first chapter of the book that week and thus began my downward spiral into the first novel I've ever finished.

So yeah, it makes perfect sense for me to dedicate this book to my older brother because without him being late to pick me up that night (and I suppose my friends leaving me there alone) the idea for this story may never have come to me. And without his vast knowledge of space and his suggestion to open up new worlds and take YA fiction a step further from dystopian future novels, the story would never have made it past The Forgotten.

Also, sorry about that ending. I've never been good at endings. Also, final statistics here, this story is 393 pages long and 107,584 words. Just in case you wanted to know because... I know I did. Thanks for sticking with it the whole way through. Now I get to start on the boring part (its name is editing and I hate it). Check back in from time to time because I will be posting updates on the editing as I move through chapter by chapter. Don't forget to rate and comment. You are all amazing.