Reflections on the writing process and discipline required to create Lucifer's Successor: Ashes.
Drafting is an act of discovery; revision is an act of discipline. The thousands of hours spent shaping Eugene Warner’s journey taught me that the story you want to tell is rarely the story you write the first time.
Eugene is not a typical hero. He is not a prophesied king or a master warrior. He is an ordinary boy born in a North Carolina hospital, completely unaware that an ancient enemy has recognized him. Balancing his human, grounded reality with the cosmic, ancient stakes of the Vaelerin universe was the greatest challenge of the book.