This is the End, Beautiful Friend… by Ripley Proserpina

This is the end of the book. I have ten thousand more words (or fifty pages, double-spaced, twelve-point font) until my current work in progress is finished. The stage is set, and all the characters are ready for the big show.

And I’m dragging my feet.

This is my favorite part (except for the beginning, I LOVE writing the beginning of a book), but I find myself a little bit nervous about tying it all up. The characters in this book, the second of a three-book series, will return after all.

But I’m not ready to say goodbye.

In between this book the final one in the series, I need to write three unrelated books. That means there’s going to be a few months (probably more) until I see these characters again. And they’ve been my good buddies these last weeks. I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to make them suffer before I give them their happily-ever.

Even now, the page is open, the cursor blinking at me, and I closed it to write this, putting off their ending because I just don’t want to be done. Briar, the first book in this series, combined all the things I love about writing—research, fantasy, mythology, history.

Then I got into the second book. It has everything I loved, times ten. I got to do more research, this time about evolutionary biology and art history. I have notebooks full of information about mimicry and predators than I may never use.

So wish me luck in these last days, the end of the story. And I’ll keep reminding myself that I have other notebooks, with other stories, that are waiting to be told.