Til Kingdom Come [Harry Styles- Bk 4]

Author's Note

Hey Guys,

This past year has been insane. I went from emailing my work to one of my cousins (only one because I was scared others wouldn't like my work), to posting it on wattpad and getting a few million reads. I don't even know how to thank you guys. I have so much to say about writing, about Hangela, about myself, about you guys and your astounding support, but I don't know where to begin. I guess I'll start with KINGDOM.

Out of the four KNIGHT books, KINGDOM was hands down the hardest to write. I had to create dozens of new characters, personalities, looks, and weave them in with the original characters-- whom I still had to continue developing. I was always afraid of straying too far from the essence of the first book, especially since so much time had lapsed in KINGDOM itself. In general, I had the toughest time trying to decide whether or not to even write a fourth book because I didn't know if I had enough of a conflict going in the story line... But I love Hangela, so I continued writing lol.

It was extremely difficult for me to balance my university work, my job (I tutor in history and English!), whatever social life I have, and writing KINGDOM. I felt very rushed while writing this last book and it's no one's fault. I absolutely love the fact that so many people were so interested in this saga that they even wanted me to update. I just wish I had less HW, the way I did freshman year, when I wrote KNIGHT... 

In general, the support my KNIGHT books have gotten this past year is absolutely astounding. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I wrote a saga. And I honest to God did not expect this level of success. I think that's key; some people message me, asking how my books got popular-- as though there's a secret formula-- and my response is: I have no idea. I just wrote from the heart and paid attention to literary techniques. People recognized my efforts and appreciated the emotion in my writing.

You just can't expect success or create a "perfect plot;" that's not how writing works. To be honest, I don't think anyone knows how writing works. I read a story once that changed POVs in every paragraph. Events repeated, then went backwards. It completely smashed the classic story formula and yet it was published. (I personally thought it was great).

One of the hardest things writers have to do is balance reality with literature. It really annoys me when I get some comments saying: " XX part of your story isn't realistic." First off, I write books and the classic story structure begins with a conflict, builds to a climax, and ends with a resolution, etc. If you want me to write reality, Angela would have been raped and beaten to death in ch.3 of KNIGHT. Harry wouldn't have saved her, let alone married her. There would be no Des, J.D., Darcy, Farah, or Liam. The story would be over in 3 chapters, not a four part saga.

Personally, I think a big reason why I was able to complete and succeed with KNIGHT is not just because the story flowed so naturally-- almost as if I was Angela in a past life-- but because I didn't expect success. It just came. 

I remember when KNIGHT had 26 reads and I kept refreshing the page, but it only went up by 1 or 2 reads. I also remember when my reads tripled from 3,000 to 12,000 in like 3 days. Instead of being excited, I got so scared because to me, it was like 12,000 people had read the thoughts and characters in my head. KNIGHT is such a personal story on many different levels...

After initially freaking out from the increase in reads, I started to calm down and enjoy the growing recognition because I wanted to win my bet and write for the rest of my life. I remember back in March, when Han_Rawr, the author of DARK tweeted about my work. She followed me on twitter and was talking about my book with someone and I screamed because literally a few weeks prior, I had read DARK and I loved it.

I'm always flattered when people compare my work to DARK or AFTER, but to be honest, I think the main difference between me and those extremely popular fanfic writers is that this isn't a hobby to me. I've written complete novels that I would die to publish. Sure, I need loads of editing, but being published is my dream. And it's funny because I sort of fell into writing in high school. I used to keep journals during the summer ever since I was 10, but I always hated reading.