Revolution- Runaways 3 [EDITING]

~author's note~

Wow, I cannot believe an entire trilogy is behind me. I spent two years developing these characters and their worlds, and my heart breaks as I watch them fade away. You know the way you feel after reading an really good book, when it feels like you just lost a part of yourself when you finished that last page? The connection you had to the characters was so strong that they felt like your friends and family, but now their story was over. That's the way I feel now.

Let me tell you, I never expected to make it this far. I wrote Runaways in eight weeks over the spring of 2020, and I thought writing was going to be easy. Then Rescue came along, and that book gave me a really hard time. I picked it up for a day or so, forcing myself to write a chapter here and there before I would burn out. I didn't think there would be a way to finish it until I went on vacation for two weeks and brought my laptop, churning out chapter after chapter until I felt like I could end the book.

Rescue was the hardest to continue, but Revolution was the hardest to start. I dropped writing for two full months, as I had completely lost my motivation. I no longer agreed with the ideas the books were based on, and I just wanted to stop. Then, out of nowhere, I was broken up with. You would think a year-long relationship being cut on the spot would be the straw that broke the camel's back, and the Runaways trilogy would be forever unfinished. But no. Instead, I poured every ounce of my heartbreak into writing. Writing was my escape from the world. I didn't have love? That was okay. Peyton did. I projected everything I wanted to feel into her, and in so many ways, that singular action helped me recover quicker than I ever thought possible.

For those of you that don't know (which most of you do, because very few people read these books that don't know me in real life), Peyton's character began as a variation of myself. The easiest way for me to write is by connecting my characters to people in my life, but I wanted her to reflect me. Most of what you see her experience is a variation of something I went through in my own life, although it is often twisted and dramatized to make the story you're reading a bit more exciting.

Interestingly enough, however, Peyton was not my favorite character to build upon. Elijah James Grotowski, the mysterious seventeen-year-old from a tiny town in Alabama, was the only character that wasn't based off someone in my real life. He was a figment of my imagination. Perhaps those of you who are more well-versed in language arts could refer to him as Peyton's foil. He was the guy I pictured myself falling for, despite his broken past. His chapters were my favorite to write. He had a unique edge to him that none of my other characters possessed. Yet, his affiliation with the USDG and the disease camps didn't come until much later.

I don't know where I wanted his character to go originally. My notes on him weren't that detailed, and they're scattered throughout multiple notebooks because I developed him as I went. But I do know for sure that he wasn't originally someone who had received the cure. In fact, Runaways was originally a stand-alone. The book was a teen-romance that didn't involve the government at all. I can't tell you where the idea came from, mainly because I don't remember, but somewhere along the line I decided that the camp would be very different than Peyton and her friends had anticipated. I was going to create a country plagued by some serious censorship.

That wasn't the only part of the book that changed. I can't tell you how many times I would be sitting in front of my computer willing myself to type words, even when I was at a complete loss, and as I started typing, an idea would strike. It could be completely different than what I had planned for the chapter, but often times it would change the book for the better. That's how the CCSA was created, that's how Marcus got the disease, that's how Micaiah and Reese got together, heck, that's how Eli came back to life! Can you imagine if he had stayed dead the whole time? What was I thinking when I envisioned that one?

If you haven't figured it out yet, this is just a place where I'm giving you some background on the book. If you're into that kind of stuff the same way I am, you're welcome. But the last thing I want to address is this: the views expressed by my characters, even Peyton, are not usually my own. You can interpret that how you would like. If you know me personally, you've probably heard a LOT about this topic. I finished the books the way I did because I started them the way I did, and that was that.

Thank you for making it this far. I hope you continue reading my stories. Maybe one day, they'll be on your bookshelf instead of on your computer screen.