As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I finally finished The Jump. I sent it to two beta readers who are both writers. They each offered me different feedback. One loved it. The other did not, particularly the ending.

The moment I typed the final words of the story, I knew that there would be readers who will not like the ending. It leaves a whole lot unanswered and unexplained. But … as I told that reader, I have reasons for this.

The story is now with a third reader, one who is not a writer. I’ve asked him to just read it to read it and give me his feedback as a reader and not as an editor or another writer.

Now comes the next hard part. Writing the blurb and formatting the thing and getting a cover I like. Taking the latter first, I already have a basic concept that my cover artist is working on and it’s almost done.

The blurb though … sigh. The last couple of books I wrote, I actually had a friend read the books and write the blurb. I think he did a pretty good job, but I want to try it myself again. So … what do you think of this?

Airplanes crashing into buildings, cities destroyed by The President’s Men, the country left as a patchwork quilt of functioning states and those filled with people with no hope. A construction crane transported around the country for the distressed and depressed to end their misery. The Jump, a tale that takes place in a not too distant future, is a dystopian take on an America ruled by a President who has declared martial law, created a cult of personality and has ruled as a dictator for far too long. It’s a world where nothing makes sense and so much is not known.

Or something like that.

Meanwhile, I wanted to add a personal note here.

The dedication for this book will be to … TJ Therien, who gave me Tum Tum Run.

Back when I first started writing this book, TJ wrote something in which a character was named Tum Tum Run. I loved the name and thought it would be perfect for a character I was creating for The Jump. I asked him if I could borrow the name. He had no objections. As a result, Tum Tum Run is a key character in this story that I hope will be memorable for readers. But there is more to why I want to dedicate this book to TJ.

I “met” him via our blogs, and for a few years we also occasionally “saw” each other over on Twitter. TJ described himself as a self-taught writer. He was not taught to read or write as a child in Canada, but something in him made him want to write stories. So he did. It was always a struggle for him. I was honored with the opportunity to read one of his manuscripts before he published it, and I’ve read some of his other work.

The other aspect of his life that TJ shared publicly was that he basically lived in poverty, unable to work due to a medical condition that continued to get worse during the years that I interacted with him on-line. The last I heard from him on Twitter was years ago — maybe before COVID, maybe in the very early days of the pandemic. He was struggling with his health condition and I could tell things were getting close.

His silence ever since has confirmed for me what my assumption was. Even though I never met him in person, I had a sense of him — that he was a good man who had struggled most of his life. Poverty and illiteracy and health issues all robbed him of being an even better man. But he never really gave up. He kept fighting.

And that’s why I’m going to dedicate The Jump to TJ. People like him, the invisible who just keep trying, are the foundation of our humanity. All too often they are ignored and that’s a shame.

TJ … I hope that wherever you are, you’re kicking ass and still writing your stories exactly the way you want to.