Yep, you read that right.

How the heck did that happen? Did I fire off the final four chapters in a blinding rush of alcohol fueled keyboarding?

No, here’s what happened.

I have been struggling for months with the ending of the first book of the three-part series of books. And I’ve struggled with WHY I’ve been stuggling. I have been unable to bring the book to a conclusion because where it is right now feels like the story is building, not concluding.

And last night I figured out why.

I finished the book quite literally years ago. I just didn’t know it. I had plunged forward in my writing frenzy into the content of the second book without realizing I had crossed the logical end point to book 1.

But I reread the entire book over the past few days and last night the reality hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was writing book 2 now. Not book 1. Book 1 was done. Now I just need to go back and start the laborious process of editing and rewriting portions of it. And I already have a start on Book 2.

But. And it’s a big but. There is a potential problem.

See, the natural, logical end point for the first book is at a point when the protagonist has just been ignominiously defeated and effectively driven out of his homeland while his massively superior enemy not only maintains control of that land, but threatens the entire world.

So the question is, if a book ends on such a note, will that turn readers off? Or if there is enough foreshadowing of the protagonist rising to a new level of power in the new land where he can meet his enemies on a more even basis and actually have a chanc of defeating them, does that make the reader want to read on?

It is a conundrum.

The other option is to add something to the end of the book which shows the protagonist may have just received a crushing military defeat, but he somehow at the same time achieves a more important personal victory.

But that would be part of the rewrite.