Yesterday I typed ‘THE END’ on my current WIP. This is a second draft, but with the first draft, there were about eight chapters where I just couldn’t wrap my brain around the scene, so in the interest of forward movement, I typed up 200-500 word descriptions of what needed to go there, and moved on to the next chapter.

I’ve never literally typed the end on a manuscript before, but since I filled out (almost all of) those scenes, I liked the finality of those two simple words.

I say almost all. I have this habit when I’m writing a love scene, if I’m not in the mood to write it (because it takes a very different frame of mind that other types of scenes, at least for me), I always put a note in that says something like: /*Intense sexiness goes here*/

I’ve been known to send my novels to CP’s with that note still in there. So far no one has complained, but one person does (rightly so) laugh about it. And she came up with a brilliant idea (which I’ll get to soon).

Quite unintentionally, or maybe just quite subconsciously, all of my recent novels have one thing in common. A coffee shop. My characters all seem to love their coffee even more than I do (except one. He hates the stuff. I’m not sure what’s wrong with him). And in each instance, these places are fairly unique.

My most recent one is my favorite, because picture a drive-thru place, like Sonic. Except instead of burgers and fries, all they sell are coffee drinks and milk shakes. I don’t know if such a place actually exists, but if not some day I would like to make it a thing.

Anyway. I don’t know that the general public would appreciate the inside joke if I actually tried to publish a novel with /*Intense sexiness goes here*/ in place of an actual love scene. So instead, I think that when I do sell/publish my first romance novel, I’ll have to do a giveaway.

Of coffee mugs.

That say /*Intense sexiness goes here*/.

That’s my resolution for the day. Or at least, my very strong desire.

And now, I’m off to fill in that scene, and then send it to a couple more readers. And I’m curious – how many of you actually type ‘the end’ at the end of a manuscript, and how many just stop writing when you reach the end?