Hey.

So, if you haven't figured it out, basically what happened is that I had initially planned for Serena and Clareese to have a happily-ever-after, but I couldn't force Clareese into that mold. She reminded me too much of the happy, peaceful, focused people in my life for whom romance would simply be a distraction.

I am certainly a hopeless romantic, but I think a huge part of growing up (at least for me) was realizing how much personal development I have to do before considering long-term monogamy. I don't party and I'm not trying to "sow my wild oats" or whatever, but living alone is pretty cool when I'm on a writing binge at two in the morning and there's no one to complain about me having Among Us playthroughs on for background noise.

I realized that, despite me not intending this, my contentedness with being single sort of made it into the story. Clareese is happy. She doesn't want or need anyone else. That's a really great place to be at. Plus, imagine how lame the story would have been if Clareese's whole character suddenly flipped 180 degrees and she declared her love for Serena. It would have made for a few beautiful scenes, but a hollow story.

My writing is about a lot of things, but mostly about consent and respect. How could I uphold that if I couldn't allow Clareese to say "no" for the sake of a few cutesy romance scenes?

Consequently, I got writer's block. I couldn't write scenes with Serena and Clareese. They felt fake and stupid and cheap. I've written tons of failed drafts in my time as a writer and they all feel the same. Shallow. I didn't want to do that to myself, or to the people who love Solar Flare so much. So I took a break, stopped worrying about it, and went back and focused on cultivating Solar Flare. As I was moderating comments and cleaning up editing errors, I noticed that A LOT of people shipped Arlette and Serena (despite the fact that the two of them didn't even MEET each other in that story?) so I went for it. And it worked. It worked perfectly and I'm damn proud of myself.

For Basic Smoke, I wanted to improve on the groundwork I laid in Solar Flare. I wanted more people of color, more cultures, more identities represented. I've always been fascinated by Acadian (or Cajun) culture, as well as the whole concept of witchcraft in the modern age. I also felt that Kirk's story wasn't done. I'm not 100% on how I feel about Kirk as a character, but it made me smile to give him a happy ending.

The big question I'm sure a lot of people have after that firework of an ending is: TRILOGY?

YES. TRILOGY.

The third (and final) story in the "Solar Flare" series will be dropping in January. Check my profile header for more information. I'll update this part then.

Thank you for all of your love and support.

Stay safe and stay sane.

- Rian