No, I don’t mean the end of the world, though with the way things are going, that wouldn’t surprise me much. 13 months ago to be exact, I wrote the first words of what would become Molly’s Song. The heavy substantive edits are finished as of a few days ago. I have to make a couple of more passes over the manuscript to clean up a few things, but it’ll be off for the copyedit in September. So it is getting closer to being finished. From this point on, things move fairly quickly. Soon enough, it’ll be time for me to tackle the dreaded query letter/synopsis. I find it amusing that I can rattle off a 104K word novel with ease but suffer paralyzing writer’s block when contemplating a 500 word synopsis.

Looking back over the 13 months that have passed, I have to say quite a lot has happened. Last summer, I lost a cousin in July unexpectedly. In August, I had a flare up of pain that lasted for a couple of months along with some mental health issues. Still, the fall semester was a good one for me, despite all that. I finished the first draft to Molly’s Song the day after Thanksgiving. Christmas Break was good, but then came the spring semester and The Rona. If you followed my “Journal of a Pandemic Year” posts, then you know all the craziness that ensued with us during that time. When I was a kid, my mother once threatened to slap me into the middle of next year. I’m tempted to see if that offer is still on the table.

Now I am going to leave you with some music connected with the novel. The first is a song that I think would make a perfect theme song if the novel is ever made into a Netflix/Amazon/Hulu series.

Molly sings a piece of this song at one point in the novel.

An Irish language song referenced in the book.

Is Molly a Fenian? This song should answer that question.

And here’s one that is a recurring theme, if you will, in the book.

Lastly, though this exact lyrical version of this song wasn’t around in the 1860s as near as I can tell, it still evokes the spirit of the book quite well.

So there you have it, Dear Readers.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

L.H.