I get it now. I now know why writers go back and write a million books in one universe. You know the type. After ten books in a series we’re all usually like, um, okay, we get it. It’s getting a little old now.

But not to the author.

I was trying to write a short story the other day and the whole time the only thing on my mind was the thought that I was abandoning the characters in my novel. I could practically hear Ashdan tapping her foot in impatience:

“Let’s go! Things to do, people to kill!”

My fingers were itching to write and I told myself. Look! Here’s a story you were really excited about writing. Do that! But, alas, it was not meant to be. The decrepit and twisted world of Jesimae would not let me go.

It’s not just that. When you spend so much time developing and creating the world and characters of a novel, you fall in love with them. You want to spend more time in that world. You want to know what happens to your characters. You want to hear their snide remarks and make sure they win that battle that they were dreading–or not (That’s a whole other post for the future–Mourning Your Characters.).

If that seems silly, I don’t know what to tell you. Try dedicating vast portions of your life to something and then just putting it down one day and never touching it again. You have poured every part of your hear, brain, imagination, and creativity into this thing and then, you leave it alone forever. You can’t, can you? You have to come back to keep perfecting and creating. Well, now you know what it’s like to create a fiction novel, specifically fantasy and science fiction. When writing about some kind of unknown element that doesn’t exist in this world, you can’t help but be curious and want to find out more about your own world.

It’s the reason that even though finishing that novel was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, I still want to keep writing. It’s the reason amazing and detailed series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, A Series of Unfortunate Events, etc. exist.

So next time you’re reading a series that seems to go on forever, try to figure out what it was that kept the author coming back every time. It’s not always worth it–*cough* Twilight *cough*–but most of the time, you’ll fall just as much in love as the author did.