SEER was the book I had to write before I could write Black Water.

Not because the stories are connected. They are not. Different characters. Different world. Different everything on the surface. But underneath they are connected by the writer who made them. SEER was where I learned what I did not know. Black Water was where I applied what SEER had taught me.

Every mistake I made in SEER became a lesson I carried into Black Water. Every structural problem the reviews identified became a question I asked myself during the writing of the next book. Does this scene earn its place. Does this character feel real or just necessary. Does this ending pull the reader forward or just stop the story.

SEER was my workshop. Black Water was my first real attempt at the thing I had been building toward since that summer day on my father’s couch.

There is something important in that sequence for anyone who wants to write. The first book is almost never the best book. It is the book that teaches you how to write the next one. The writers who get discouraged by an imperfect first effort and stop are the ones who never find out what they were actually capable of. The writers who treat the first book as tuition and start the second one are the ones who eventually produce something that lasts.

SEER was my tuition. I paid it. I kept going.

Black Water is what happened on the other side of that payment.

Stephon Rudd