Yesterday I was fortunate enough to be able to make a guest posting on Antonia Tiranth’s Blog. That’s in addition to the post I was able to make on the Virtual Book Tour blog last week. If you haven’t read one or both of those posts, then please feel free.
But more importantly…
Yesterday I finished going through the first draft of Eternally and Evermore, making changes (actually very few changes in the last 30 chapters or so) and I think it’s now ready to go off for submission. Which, naturally, I’m very, very happy about.
And you know what else I’m happy about?
It’s bloody brilliant!
Seriously, it is. Look, I now I shouldn’t be saying that because I wrote it and I’m biased, but honestly, I’ve never been this excited after reading something I’ve written. It’s like… I can’t explain it. It feels like I got this one right. Not just right, but right. Do you see what I mean? Let me try and explain.
Eternally & Evermore is a story of two halves. In the first part of the story, the hero, Will, is insecure, naive, a bit nerdy. In short, he’s a typical teenager. By contrast the heroine, Amy, is confident and outgoing. She’s the queen of the school, the girl all the other girls want to be and the girl all the boys want. Including Will. Or at least, that’s the way she seems. The story is told from Will’s point of view and Will is thoroughly in love with Amy so she seems to be this goddess for the first part of the story.
This first part of the story is awkward and uncomfortable at times. It’s meant to be that way – it’s about teenagers and that’s how teenagers feel most of the time. Or rather, that’s how Will feels as a teenager most of the time. But just when Will and Amy are professing their love for each other and promising they’ll be together ‘eternally & evermore’ (they got it from a song) we are suddenly propelled twenty years in time – to the present day – and everything is different.
Will is divorced – and not from Amy – and he has a teenage daughter he sees less often than he would like. He’s also a partner in a successful law firm and one of the most respected lawyers in his town. He’s confident, assured, decisive. He’s grown into the man his teachers thought he would. But Amy comes comes back into his life after a school reunion and his world gets turned upside down.
Amy is also different than she was as a teenager. She’s less confident, less secure. If fact, she and Will seem to have switched places. She’s downtrodden because of what her life has thrown at her and needs Will to help her find the strength she once had.
This second part of the story is also a reflection of Will’s change in demeanour. It rockets along at an incredible pace – never letting up as Amy has revelation after revelation for Will and events push them towards one of the most dramatic climaxes I’ve ever written.
If people were saying that Kissed by a Rose should have been a movie, God only knows what they’ll make of this. Yesterday I started reviewing chapter 22 and raced through to the end (chapter 51 and an epilogue) unable to stop myself reading it. It just carried me along and I had no say in the matter.
Like I said, I know it’s bad form to talk up your own work like this – but I can’t help it. And I know that every writer thinks the last thing he wrote is the best thing he’s ever written – but this really is the best thing I’ve ever written. By far. Even the villain of the piece – John – leaves you feeling for him and understanding what he’s gone through and why he is like he is.
I cannot wait to see what the publisher makes of it. I hope they like it even half as much as I do. And I can’t wait to get it ‘out there’ so you can all read it and then I hope you like it too.
I’m feeling pretty elated right now. Long may it last.
