Midnight Walks | ✔

acknowledgements

If you've made it to the end of this book, I thank you. It's funny how at lack of words I am after having written and being known for not knowing when to stop writing. This book of mine has been with me for the longest part of my life-on and off, on good and bad days alike. My head cannot wrap around the fact that it is done, after almost three years of rewrite.

I had originally started this book when I was in eighth grade, with an absurd idea and a plot that was practically non-existent. All I knew was I wanted to write characters I could love and feel for, and that people could relate to. Mostly, I did it for escapism in a story that felt real and similar to mine.

I'm a college student now, and the book has gone through so many rewrites-so many changes, much like how I have. I like to think that every draft of this book was like a different phase in my life, different seasons, unfolding right alongside me. It was like a friend, hand in hand, transforming, bettering, struggling, but rising. It took me so long to get here, but I wouldn't change anything for the world.

And it still isn't anywhere near perfect. It is messy and stupid at times, and it is chaotic and maybe things don't make sense, but I think that it is raw because of that, and because of that the characters feel so much like home to me. This book, this universe, these characters-for the longest time, were the place I returned to when real life was overbearing. I wish that this book, the experience of reading, can be somewhat similar for you guys. That's all I could hope for.

This book was what ignited my love for words. My love for writing. Before this I wouldn't have known that creating universes with people and their struggles would resonate with me so deeply it would be cathartic. I wouldn't have known that I could fall in love with the possibilities of how things can evolve, and how characters in my head transform into real people on page.

I'd look back on this book that I wrote during one of the most formative periods of my life and possibly cringe and want to die of embarrassment. To be honest, there's still parts of the story I reread and want to erase out of memory. But what I'll never not be is proud. Of myself. Of this story. Of the feelings it evoked, of the home it provided me, and of the newfound hobby and love it rooted in me for writing. I owe it all to this one.

It might be shabby and muddled but it is mine. And that is a feat in my books.

Thank you for sticking. If this made you laugh, cry, feel anything at all-if the characters made home in your mind and you thought about them even when you weren't reading-if you fell in love with the love the characters shared, know that it was all I'd ever wanted.

I hope this one stays with you, just like how your support stays with me.

You're golden,

Bri