I had the experience recently, as I suppose many authors do, of losing my motivation to write. I confess, I was dismayed, recalling explicitly that upon finishing my first (unpublished) novel in 1989, I made the statement, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life, even if I never make a nickel.”

At the time, I was president of the National Association of Women Business Owners – Houston Chapter, Secretary of the Greater Houston Speakers Association, and served on the board of a business incubator. Nevertheless, I folded my own business that year  – it was business burnout that had started me start writing – took an administrative position at a bank and began honing my craft of novel writing.

Seven years, five novels later my fifth book, Bitch Factor, was sold by PMA Literary Agents in a three-book contract to Bantam Books for publication. Life was good. I wrote the next two books in that series, Bantam published them, and readers responded with cheers. Then Amazon came along and changed the publishing world forever.

For the next 14 years, I continued writing fiction while also ghostwriting nonfiction books. During that time I started Emissary, a scifi/mystery crossover novel, which never seemed to quite fit the market yet continued to implore me to keep laying down words. Market be damned, there was something in it I wanted to say.

In 2014, Emissary was published by Chart House Press. I was thrilled, but the market was underwhelmed. Most who read it gave glowing reviews, and it continues to have a 4.6 out of 5-star rating on Amazon, yet Emissary never reached the level of sales I expected.

Since then, I’ve written and published five more novels, five short-story anthologies, and once again was feeling a serious case of burnout. My motivation was seriously circling the drain. The only thing that kept me writing a few pages occasionally was the enjoyment I get from being around other writers.

Then two weeks ago I gave a talk at Houston Focus on Concerns for Women on the topic of “Switching Streams – Strategies for Adopting a New Life Goal.” It included some of the words I’ve written here and finished with this phrase, “During those years I picked up a paint brush and entered a new life stream – abstract art.” I honestly felt at that moment that my novel-writing life was behind me.

Before I could leave the room, several people approached and specifically asked if I intended to finish the Emissary trilogy. They had enjoyed it and wanted to know what was next in the lives of Kirk Longshadow and Emissary Ruell. A couple of mornings later I woke with words in my head and went straight to the keyboard. I wrote only three paragraphs, but I believe they’re the beginning of Emissary 2.

This place, all darkly metallic but rubbery to touch… and knobby… Ruell recognized it—a ship’s cockpit. Smaller, more confined than he recalled, snug bucket seat pushing him knees to knobs, his face so near the wraparound visual of what the ship was rushing toward that he shrank back in alarm.

In the blackness of space, a planet loomed like a chunk of impossibly round ice swirling with blue hatred. In truth, it was thousands of miles away, yet in the click of a moment it filled the vis-screen, slamming into the ship, pouring its seething hatred through holes that had been knobs. The hatred emerged as writhing snakes of bile and anger.

They slithered up Ruell’s legs and wrapped around his middle, pinning him in place, anchoring him to his seat as the cockpit closed in, rubbery metallic knobs pressing against his arms, his head…

These first paragraphs, quite naturally, might be edited as the book progresses, but let me know what you think.

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