It’s only two days left until More Than Anything is released. I’m sitting her equal parts excited and biting my nails in anxiety. This is THE book. The longest book I’ve ever written; the longest in the making as Jørgen and Geir were the second gay couple to ever come to me, almost ten years ago now; the book I’m the most proud of out of every single other story I’ve ever written. If people doesn’t like this one, then I might just give up, because this is my masterpiece.
Okay, a bit of an overstatement there, but truly. These characters have been with me for so damn long! They were supposed to be dead and buried, and had been for a couple years, until they rose from their graves and dusted each other off last year. They came back with a vengeance.
So I wrote their story. I had planned it to come in around 50K, perhaps. I certainly couldn’t have more story than that. I’d never written anything longer before in my life. (Well, okay, I have, but in Norwegian, so not in my English writing career.) Then the first part, told from Jørgen’s POV ended up an astounding 10K. And then the second part, told from Geir’s POV, also ended up around 10K. And off they went, switching POV for every part. And it ended up at ten. TEN parts. 100K words!
I had plans for this and that to happen, and they thwarted me on some and others followed the outline smoothly. Smooth. That’s the word I’ll use for the writing of this novel. Everything flowed smoothly, I wrote like a fiend. Half of it in October, the rest in November. I did nothing but write last November, finishing this novel as well as writing the entire sequel to it (different characters, who happens to be the first ever gay couple that came to me).
What a ride it’s been. It was fun. It was finally done right. I’ve got more documents of older versions than I can count, and let me tell you… they’re not alike at all. With this novel, these characters, I feel like I’ve grown as a writer. This is the standard I will now compare newer works too. This is THE book. The one I’m proudest of. My baby. And I really hope people like it.