The End feels like The Beginning

I’m celebrating The End.

My second manuscript, Until Death, has made it through a first draft, and subsequent rewrites. YAY! to writing The End--again.

Until Death is written from two points-of-view and explores grief, love, and how to live in the face of imminent death.

Since Jake Riox’s near-death-experience he’s haunted by visions, premonitions of how others will die. But despite the warnings, death still comes.

Emma Connors’ father is dead and her mother may as well be. When she meets Jake, so full of anger and raw emotion, she has a desperate need to help him, as if helping him will rid her of her own nightmares.

But then Jake sees Emma’s death; he vows to fight Fate and win this time, even if it kills him—again. Emma is just as determined to save Jake from his re-occurring nightmares, and will risk her own life, if need be. As Emma and Jake work through their grief and the thrill of first love, they try to stay a step ahead of Fate. But death is closing in and time is running out.

Yay! I am just so excited about this manuscript, because this time The End feels like, maybe, just maybe it will be The Beginning.

I could be totally wrong, of course, but I think (hope, pray, all possible appendages remain crossed) this manuscript has real potential in catching the eye of an agent, and hopefully one of my top five.


With my fist manuscript, I didn’t have that same sense, so this is new to me.

The other thing that’s new for me: I miss Emma and Jake. Weird, huh? I promised myself to put the manuscript aside for a few weeks while two writer friends and my mentor do a full ms critique. Then I'll take one last look through before sending it out in January. But I keep thinking about them. What will they get each other for Christmas? What would they do to make this Christmas less painful for them, what about New Years . . .

So to preserve my sanity I’ve opened a new doc file, created a title page, and have begun book two titled, Essence. Perhaps a fruitless task since no one has even looked at book one. And I’ve heard of so many whose second book has been passed on by their editors, but what the heck. I did write Until Death as a standalone with potential threads that could be used in a second book.

Here’s to new beginnings. What are you working on?