This entry is a summation of the last few updates I posted on my Website, covering the month of March.
-----
It's been an eventful few weeks in my world, including but not limited to writing "A Healing Love," and I wanted to share some updates on the progress, the process, and a few challenges along the way.
Back in late February, I found myself needing a short break from the manuscript. Writing the recent chapters (around Chapter 35) proved to be incredibly rewarding – some of the best writing I feel I've ever done – but also intensely emotionally draining. Living with these characters (Paul, Clarissa, Emily, Mark, Imogen, and the others) for over a decade means they feel very real, and their experiences resonate deeply. Crafting a particularly moving speech for Paul at the launch of "The Clarissa Trust," where he speaks directly to the award recipients, hit me quite hard. Sometimes, you just need to step away, even if briefly (in my case, for some GTA Online!). But after that short pause, I was ready to dive back in.
My return to writing led to completing Chapter 36, though it turned out differently than I initially expected. After finishing the emotional arc of Chapter 35, I found that the subsequent section I wrote, intended as the start of Chapter 36, felt like a natural continuation rather than a distinct new chapter. They were connected yet relatively short on their own.
So, I made the decision to combine them. While I worried this might dilute the impact of Chapter 35's original ending, I found it actually strengthened the narrative, carrying the themes forward seamlessly. The result is that the "Chapter 36" that's now complete serves as more of a transitional chapter, moving the story forward from recent events towards the book's conclusion. This process also saw the manuscript grow significantly, pushing past the 165,000-word mark and making me reconsider my initial estimate for the first draft's final length.
More recently, the infamous financial year-end crunch has descended. As many of you know, my 'IRL' job is managing finances for a law firm. March (our company year-end) and early April (the UK tax year-end) create a perfect storm of deadlines: closing deals, invoicing, budget planning, salary reviews, and this year, an added rush from changes to Stamp Duty Land Tax. It's hectic, stressful, and leaves little energy left at the end of the day.
This inevitably impacts evening writing sessions for "A Healing Love." While I'm still trying to squeeze in writing whenever possible, progress is slower when your day job is so demanding. Compounding this is a challenge with the writing itself: crafting the book's ending.
When I started "A Healing Love," it was meant to be the final book in the Paul Robertson Saga, complete with a planned happy ending. However, the story grew far beyond my initial scope. It became clear that, unless I wanted a single book far longer than any previous one (the current draft is already nearing 170,000 words, significantly longer than "A Tortured Soul"), it needed to be split into two.
This means the ending I'm writing now isn't the ultimate conclusion, but rather the midpoint – the end of book four, which serves as the catalyst for the final happy ending in book five. This presents the difficult task of writing a bitter-sweet ending, which I find the hardest kind to craft. There's also a character complication: someone I originally intended to act poorly to drive the plot forward has evolved as I've written her. I've grown attached, and making her act against the grain of who she's become feels wrong. It's a classic case of falling in love with the heroine all over again!
It's definitely a "me" problem, and one I'll need to navigate to serve the story. Despite the hurdles – the emotional toll, the necessary restructuring, the demands of the day job, and the complexities of a bitter-sweet, catalytic ending – I'm determined to push through and bring this part of Paul's journey to its conclusion.