Endings

By: Anita Clenney

Christmas is upon us and the end of the year is fast approaching. What a year it's been for me. Making my first sale, achieving my dream. I've gone through revisions, edits, copy edits, and now it's in the capable hands of my publisher. I'm finished with my part of the creation so it feels like I've reached an end, but it really isn't. As all of you know, probably even better than me, there is still a lot of work to do. In fact, some would stay the work has just begun. Promotion, more writing, more promotion.

Endings are usually just a starting point for something else. Death is the beginning of eternity. Fall is the just the earth resting so it can blossom bigger and brighter next year. One day's end starts another. When I finish a book, I know it isn't the end for those characters. They'll be back, helping the current hero and heroine solve their dilemmas, so I can move on to the next hero and heroine.

I'm finishing the second book now,and it's great to see the characters from the first book alive and well, but the frightening thing is that each new book needs to be better than the one before. Exciting and fresh, but with a touch of familiarity.

One show that does this well is True Blood. The series has stayed brilliantly fresh. From season to season, I wonder what they can possibly do to top the last, and then they go and do it. They go in a different direction, same characters, add in some new ones, and it's fresh, exciting, shocking, but familiar at the same time. This is what I want to achieve in my writing. Fresh with a bit of familiar.

Tomorrow is Christmas. Many celebrate the birth of Christ, and we try to think of others a little more during this season of giving. But when Christmas is officially over, it doesn't really end. Christ is still alive and well. We still care and we still give. The holiday decorations just go the attic for storage, and if the Christmas tree is real, it goes off to be reincarnated as mulch or decompose and give nutrients to the ground. Nothing really ends. It only changes. Whether it's in our lives or in our books. For me, I want both to be fresh and yet familiar.

I hope this was a wonderful year for you all, and that next year is even better!!