Some final words to the readers now that NJA is finished.

First, this was a story that I had wanted to write for a very long time. Having created the Blue Rose storyline with the first three books I had wondered about writing a story that was more "dangerous but fun" where the stakes weren't insanely high but still challenging enough for the characters. Additionally, I wanted to play up the humor levels substantially, as I think that really livens up a story and helps further develop the players.

So NJA actually came out of two different sequel ideas I had plotted ever since I finished Blue Rose #3 (Awakening). Originally the plan was to do a short-story that was set after the one-year break in #3, where Patrick and Erin are going to high school along with the rest of the pilots. The second short story was all about the college years, and was to focus solely on Rei and Patrick's relationship. Neither story as originally conceived had the excitement that I really wanted, but both had elements I did want to keep.

I also asked readers "what do you want to see most" in a further storyline, and the most popular response was to no one's surprise to see Rei and Patrick go "all the way." If you've read Play to Remember, you've already seen one way such a story could work, but I knew I could really do a lot more with those two.

You might be interested in that for the Blue Rose series, I've actually traveled to many of the locations in the books. I've been to Hakone and Lake Ashi of course, actually having traveled there before I ever saw Evangelion. I've also been to Boston and Cambridge Mass, Maine, Alaska, Okinawa, and a few other settings in the stories. So I try to keep as much detail about these locations when I can when I write. It's actually kind of fun going to a place and then putting a story together based on it. Ian Fleming did this quite often, and I find he's a good model to follow for book authoring if you're serious about it.

As you've no doubt seen there's a few surprises in NJA, and the biggest ones reflect where we could take the story from here. I do have plans for a further storyline that takes us a bit further into the future. However, by this point I've exhausted nearly all of my ideas on EVA and I need the time to recharge and revisit when I'm ready. Also given that we're on the verge of seeing the final Evangelion film in the New Movie Editions (aka "Rebuild") and what I suspect is going to be a major shake-up of the EVA-Verse in that film I need to provide room in the architecture to take advantage of what we might get out of EVA 3+1, so further EVA stories are on hold for now.

Some of you already know that I have a new writing project in the works with a completely original setting. This is not fanfiction, but actual fiction writing of a series of novels for a commercial market. Background work is already started on what is currently being called Terran Alpha, and I expect a full storyline to start taking shape starting in January although it may be a while before anything concrete gets done. Terran Alpha bears some similarities with Blue Rose, including the use of young adult protagonists, but will not be EVA in another form but instead very different in scope and plot. That doesn't mean I wont steal from EVA or Blue Rose if it suits me.

So at this break point I really want to thank the readership for all of your support of this endeavor. As you can guess it's not easy doing this, and finding time to write freakin' novels in between running two companies and dealing with complex family matters feels nearly impossible at times, but we made it. A million words in fifteen years of writing! Whew!

Also I'm not unaware that most fanfic readers steer away from stories with OCs in them, and who could blame them? Believable and grounded characterization is one of the hardest parts of good fiction writing, it's hard to get this right and so many attempts at OCs fail because of the wish-fulfillment of the writers ending up on the page way too much. Knowing from the beginning that I ran the risk of these stories being pushed to the curb for being too "out there" or violating unspoken rules of Fanfictiondom, I still persisted to write the story I wanted to read and I think I actually got it. I hope you did too.

Thank you again for all of your support and please leave good reviews and recommendations, especially if you want to see more of this sooner rather than later. I won't completely abandon Blue Rose, but will keep posting 'stuff' as I'm able to so stay tuned to those story and author alerts. If you're interested in the new storyline I'm working on I'll also make that available as I can when the time comes, hopefully starting in the middle of 2021. Ciao!

December 23, 2020.

S. P. Dudley