Hi there, guys and dolls!  So happy to state that I’m almost ready to type THE END on the second Poppy Cove Mysteries, under the working title of DEATH OF A BEAUTY QUEEN.  Pretty much just wrapping up the end details and epilogue, then one final fine-toothed go over and off to my publisher, Cozy Cat Press.  I’ll give you more details as I can, but for now, let’s just keep it in suspense a little longer, shall we?  Thanks to all of you for playing along.  I so love my people!

It’s been such a learning process, becoming a dreamer, then writer, published writer, series creator.  It’s like painting, I’ve found out.  Layering, touching up, standing back, correcting, changing the corrections, re-grouping and soldiering on.  But I’m glad to say that I’ll know when it’s done.  Sometimes in life, a person keeps adding, not finishing a project — muddling and mucking until it’s lost.  Finishing a first novel and now coming near on the second, it feels good that it’s not moldering away in a drawer.  It has a procedure and a goal to it — the outline fulfilled and story told with a plan for the third already in the works.  For veteran writers, actually having a completed manuscript may be old hat and that’s terrific, but for newbies like me and possibly for others who have stories meant to be told that have “just one more thing” to finish before they see the light of day, then tuck it away out of fear or personal discouragement, it feels so good to actually just accomplish a completed work.  Knowing when to stop and surrender it over as a finished piece is something that maybe we take for granted.  Letting go of your creations is a powerful and generous step in the right direction towards making pie in the sky dreams into feet on the ground realities.  I wish all of you the pleasure and satisfaction of a work of he(art) realized.

Toodles,

Barbara Jean