Typing those little words is a sad moment.

Sure it’s an accomplishment. It means months of imagining, pondering, creating and general wood-burning are over and a story is finished.

Even though I have a revision to do, my characters have come to their very happy ending. I’m cheering for them. Naturally.

But I find I’m a little sad, too. I’m going to miss these very nice people. I’m going to miss their blind spots that kept them from overcoming their hurdles and falling in love a long time ago. I’m going to miss their banter, their furtive glances, their long sighs.

I’m going to miss their mothers, the places where they inhabit, the dreams they want to come true.

My new story is a G-rated love story set at the beach. In fact, it’s the second romance I’ve written where the ocean serves as a backdrop. Only yesterday, I got a book contract for FEARLESS SUMMER. It’s set in Chincoteague, a place of charm, beaches and wild ponies. It will be published in e-book in August 2022. Champagne Books will release the paperback in time for next summer’s beach reading.

In the meantime, I’d say a few weeks from now, after my misty-eyed mood fades, I’ll get out my biggest red pen and attack my new story, fixing it up and polishing so it’s perfect for my readers.

Even if I’m sad, I know my characters and I reconnect in a few weeks. And by then I’ll be so glad to see them, and see if what I wrote is really what happened to them. I’ve been known to make serious plot changes in the final moments of revisions.

I’ll keep you posted.