Five years of writing

Hey everyone!

Happy Fourth of July to those who celebrate! I’m definitely looking forward to eating some good food and hanging out with my family. You’ll have to let me know what you’re doing for the Fourth in the comments!

This week marked the end of the beta reading period I had set for The Phoenix Pendant (thank you so much to all of my wonderful beta readers!). It made me stop and think about how far the book has come—and how far my writing has come in general.

I feel like I’ve been writing forever, but when I really thought about it, it’s only been around five years. I started writing in the summer of 2021, and I remember already being a little way into my first book by my twelfth birthday that year. Now I’m almost eighteen!

Thinking back on that first project, temporarily titled Light Turned to Darkness, my writing process was so chaotic and random. I had no idea what I was doing and had very little consistency. About a year into that project, I decided to put it on hold and start a new one, which ended up becoming The Phoenix Pendant.

So much has changed since that first draft. The plot and characters are barely recognizable. It went from something that was barely legible to something I’m actually really proud of, and having other people read it has been such a weird mix of nerves and excitement.

And now, I’m writing the first draft of my fourth book.

It feels kind of crazy to type that.

My fourth book.

My writing has come so far over the last four years. And it’s also been almost three years since I started this newsletter. Thank you so much to everyone who’s been along for the ride. I’m so grateful for all of your support, and I hope you’ll stick around because hopefully sometime soon, I’ll get to share even more of my writing with you.

Thanks for reading!

Abby Henderson

P.S. Out of all the projects I've mentioned over the years, which one would you most like to read a quote or excerpt from? Let me know, and I’ll share a snippet in the next newsletter!