So, I give you permission to skip this. (Not like you need my permission, because, truly, you—the reader—have all the power.)
Many people already know the story of how Virulent came to be. A ninth grade student in a pullout class for reluctant readers was unsurprisingly reluctant to read any book I peddled in front of him. Discouraged and out of options, I promised him that I would write the book he wanted to read. Sliding a piece of paper in front of him, I had him craft a list. His list was brief. He wanted: the apocalypse, death, destruction, bad guys with backstories, zombies, and he most definitely didn’t want a sappy love story. Sorry kid about the zombies.
For a few months, I crafted what would become some of the early chapters of Virulent. It was my creative writing students who inspired me to keep plugging away. (Yes, they inspired ME! I’m beyond blessed to teach the next generation of writers.) And when one of my students took the manuscript home and came to me the next day begging for the next chapter, I knew that I had to finish the story I had started.
I had no idea when I started Virulent where the story would go. So, writing three books was out of the realm of my understanding.
There was only one thing I knew for certain: when I wrote The End, I wanted it to truly be a beginning. Let me put it this way instead: I wanted the Virulent Trilogy to be an origins story. So many of our favorite dystopian books take place years after society has succumbed to its reformed way of life. If the trilogy had opened with that in mind, then we would have started twenty years later on Kymberlin; characters would visit the Remembering Room as part of a yearly cleansing ritual to understand why they are out on the ocean and not on land. Huck may be dead, but his legacy of a megalomaniacal reign would be evident in every corner of the Island. And perhaps a small group of children, born and raised within the glass walls of the tower, would plot an escape. Together they would want to venture to the western mountains of the Former-United-States. Whispers of a community there, a group of survivors, infiltrate their daily conversations. People born with shackles always dream of running free.
That is a different story.
Maybe I’ll write it someday. Maybe I won’t. Maybe someone else should?
Regardless, I knew that ending The Variables where I did would inspire a certain level of frustration. There are unanswered questions. My intention was to end the series when it felt like it could be the start of another great adventure. For me, that feels powerful and exciting.
In that vein, I opted out of publishing the epilogue I wrote. It didn’t work; it didn’t fit. It wasn’t where the story needed to stop—I went on too long, told too much, painted too precise a picture.
Sometimes the future of our most beloved characters is best left in the mind of the reader. You can craft for yourself what will happen to our motley cast after The End. And best of alclass="underline" you won’t be wrong. I leave the next chapters to you and your imaginations. I trust you.
No matter what happens to my dear Lucy, Grant, Ethan, Darla, Teddy, and the others in the aftermath of their escape, one thing is abundantly clear. They have become intricately woven into the fabric of my life and they will still stay with me every day. I wish for them happiness and love and a life without regret. But who knows? We don’t always get what we want.
Alright, narcissistic navel-gazing over. Continue on with your day. And know that I appreciate you (yes, you; don’t be silly) more than you will ever know.
Shelbi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I have already wasted my best ideas. An Academy Award acceptance speech…credits at the end of a movie…what else is out there to fully capture my appreciation besides a boring old acknowledgments page? I thought of recording my thank yous and uploading a video and simply providing you the link.
But I’ve been trapped in my house for four days due to a snow and ice storm in Portland and I am in dire need of an eyebrow wax and a haircut. Add that to the fact that I have not showered and I’m wearing sweatpants. There are some moments that should not be captured visually for posterity. (Don’t take that sentence to mean I’m unhappy with this current state: sweatpants make up fifty-percent of my wardrobe.)
Do you want to know the truth about writers? Do you want to pull back the curtain to the writer’s life and examine the minutia of his or her world?
It is a lonely journey. Long hours in front of a computer and inside one’s own head.
I write these acknowledgments as a way to show my appreciation for the people who dared to venture inside that crazy head. For the people who have allowed me to be a horrible friend. Do you know what a horrible friend does? A horrible friend listens to you and tries to help you solve your own problems, but the whole time is thinking about whether or not you want to hear about how her characters are trapped on this manmade island out in the Atlantic. And do you know why it’s the Atlantic and not the Pacific? Because the Atlantic has better waves that could be converted to wave energy. And do you want to hear about what I learned about wave energy?
No.
No one does.
But good friends…amazing friends…friends deserving of their name IN PRINT…listen anyway.
Good friends respond to the following frantic text messages within minutes: “HELP! I THINK I KILLED OFF THE WRONG CHARACTER! HELP! MUST REWRITE! GOING TO DIE!” They buy you bourbon and meet you at bars and pretend to love your characters as much as you do. Or, better yet, they DO love your characters as much as you do.
Good friends know that you are capable and talk you off the brink of bad decisions. They help you see your potential and encourage you to take chances when you are thinking that it’s better to take the easy way out.
And when you apologize to these friends and say, “I’m sorry I’m talking about the book so much. I’m self-aware to realize that this is not how we should be spending lunch,” instead of admitting you are right, they say it’s okay, it’s fine, and together you wax philosophical about parent/child relationships.
Real, good friends respond to long rambling Facebook posts lamenting how you’re not strong enough to be a writer and your ego is too fragile and you’re pretty sure everyone thinks you are a fraud. They remind you that you are just a paranoid idiot and there are, surprisingly/unsurprisingly, people who really like you. So, shut up.
Yes, a lonely journey indeed.
Because inside my own head at any given time are multiple narratives spinning and weaving and growing into full-fledged stories. Many other authors talk about how they don’t want to bother their friends and family with drafts and writer’s dilemmas. I guess I’m a bad friend. Because if you are my friend, I have asked you to come along this journey with me. Some of you are my beta-readers, some of you are my escape, some of you watch my kids so I can write, and some of you let me wake you up at 3 a.m. to read a new chapter. (Okay, that one is just my husband.) Some of you are just an encouragement to me always—through kind words or excitement over this crazy life I have chosen. I could not ask for a better group of people to spend my time with.
No matter what role you have had in helping this trilogy come to fruition, you are essential to its existence. And to mine.