The poll on what I write next will end after two days. If you’re a patron, there are still two days left to make sure your opinion counts! Right now there’s a tie between A Deal’s a Deal and When in Toronto… As mentioned previously, if there’s a tie I’ll choose which of the two to write if they are still tying by the time the poll closes.

Last week (or rather, early this week, because I’m so good at posting on time), I released the epilogue to The Good, the Bad and the Molly. Again, I didn’t necessarily have to actually put the epilogue into words, but I did so for what I currently understand as three reasons.

One, leading up to the wrapping up of the story, I’d gotten a few emails and comments from readers noting that the darkness of my stories was sometimes a bit too much for them. I don’t like to pander, but I already knew in my head that this story had a happy ending, so I wanted to spread the warm fuzzies of the known happy ending in my head for those that would have appreciated it most.

Two, I think it’s clear at this point that when I leave something open-ended, it’s for some kind of reason. I wanted to make it crystal clear that I’m never touching the direct story of Molly and Aaron again. An epilogue seemed like the best way to tie a bow on the whole thing and wrap it up. And the nice thing about it not being a chapter and feeling like some sort of external entity is, if you didn’t like it, you can by all means disregard it as non-canon and imagine the story ends at chapter fifteen in that slightly sad ambiguous way.

Three, there were a few things I wanted to include. Chiefly the bit at the end where I talk directly to the reader about abuse, but also the ice rink. Without the epilogue, Aaron’s discovery of the ice rink around chapter eight is kind of pointless. Ever since that moment happened I could feel and understand the story between them ended there in one way or another.

Those are largely the three reasons. Was the epilogue a little thrown-together? I can understand if it came across that way. Honestly – and this would be hilarious if it’s true – it’s possible I specialize so much in writing sad erotica that I legitimately don’t know how to write a proper happy ending yet. Either way, I understand the ending was a bit cheesy and a bit of a departure from my usual ambiguous style, but if it’s any comfort, I didn’t stray from how the story played out in my head to pander or anything. As well, it was a bit shorter, but including any other events would have felt like needless padding. As far as an epilogue goes, I’m not unhappy I wrote it at all, and some readers liked it, and some readers didn’t. I just want to make sure I communicate to both sides that their voices are being heard and that I’m listening to when people liked something and when they disliked it too. Again, this is hilarious to think about, but less people said they didn’t care for Breathe than GBM’s epilogue. People ask me sometimes if I’m okay given the sad nature of the stuff I write… are you all okay too? 😉

Whether you liked or disliked GBM’s epilogue, or even GBM in general, more stuff is coming. Different stuff, finally. I hope you all will enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to you all being along for the ride. I’ll talk to you all next week.