《Sorcery in Boston》End of Book 1 - Author's Note

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Thank you for reading “Sorcery in Boston.” It has been a fascinating journey for me, full of fun, frustration, research, growth, and perspective.

Ultimately, I’m sad to say that I’m really not happy with it, in the end. I feel like I have, and further developed, a great amount of skill at the technical aspects of writing - spelling, grammar, and so on, as well as when and how rules can be broken for effect. However, I feel this story has really showcased some significant weaknesses in storytelling skill. Pacing and character development, in particular, seem quite problematic.

I had always intended to end this book at this point. Book 1 was supposed to be about how little Aera Koryn breaks away from her uncertainties and frailties. Aera, who starts as a rather pathetic, if well intentioned, little flower who would never amount to anything in life. She grows, painfully and resisting every step, into gaining insights into depths of personality, of morality, of consequences, of the nature of what it means to make a choice. While she started with an understanding of consequences to some extent, she feared that knowledge so thoroughly that she was effectively paralyzed from making any decisions of her own.

In other words, it could be said that Book 1 was a coming-of-age story, about destroying the rather hopeless child artist, and forcing her to stand up as someone that could be respected, admired, and even loved. It’s about accepting that if you have power that others lack - even if you never asked for it, didn’t want it, and want nothing more than to just go back to safety - that your choices can and will affect the world around you. That, hard as it is, as unnatural as it can feel, it is good and right to step up and try to wield that power in a way that makes the world better.

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Thus, Book 1 ends as soon as her childhood (in personality, if not age) ends, as soon as she is ready to stand.

It was also not supposed to be nearly this long. I’ve been struggling with pacing since the very start. It’s almost a thousand pages! It was supposed to be a few hundred, at most! Character development feels desperately slow because it is desperately slow. I’ve also failed to showcase aspects of her personality - that diamond does exist deep in her soul, obscured by a layer of cowardice and a sense of inadequacy. I wanted it to be clear that if she could overcome her fears, and her beliefs in her inadequacy born of being in the shadow of her parents, that everyone could see that she could be amazing and strong, given time and tempering. The criticisms I’ve gotten have been wonderful for my own development as an author, to help me see the weaknesses of expression.

Book 2’s plan is about how she claims the world stage, how she changes the world as a whole. It’s a little of a tickle for me, because it’s standard in stories that Hitler isn’t supposed to ever be killed, WW2 is supposed to never be stopped early, because of the massive changes that would cause in the world. My intention was to tackle that challenge.

Now, though, I don’t feel like I can - not yet, anyway. I feel like Book 1 needs to be fixed, first, which is a daunting task on its own. Before I do any of it, I want to step away and write other things for a time. My other story on here, “Of Gods and Dungeons,” is a nice, playful little romp, not something I take too seriously. I haven’t written it recently, because I’ve been feeling rather inadequate myself, over my frustrations with “Sorcery in Boston.” Now that this is done, though, I think I’ll continue that one and try to go back to enjoying writing again. It’s what my poor soul needs :P

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Thank you all again for your support, kindness, and for sharing in the journey. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better author for you, but I promise to continue to grow.

Thank you again, and farewell.

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