The Last Time We Met

The Last Time We Met cover

James has always known he’s had past lives.  Snatches of memories, the birthmark he calls his “tattoo.”   

When James finds a strangely captivating photograph of a girl at an antiques store, he doesn’t expect it to lead him to Cedric.  His attraction to Cedric is immediate, but then the dreams start.  The dreams portal him into past lives with Cedric that all share one thing in common: each life takes place during an epidemic.  As James and Cedric enter into 2020, James realizes this life may end in the same fate. 

Read online on Wattpad!

Writing Process

(April – November 2020)

This novel began as a short story for Wattpad’s The One That Got Away anthology. I liked the idea of two soulmates meeting in this lifetime, and the one who could remember their past lives looking to connect. I didn’t get very far before revising another short story of mine to submit.

With the arrival of COVID, my work-in-progress (Working Title: Gold Dust Story) for April’s Camp Nanowrimo disappeared, and I returned to this idea. I liked the idea of someone who remembers past lives in which their soulmate dies in various plagues now confronted with the current pandemic. In this story, I played a bit with the fanfiction soulmate trope and tried to write it as if I was writing a fanfic (only with original characters). It seemed to work out really well, and I didn’t want to stop writing it as November’s Nanowrimo approached. So I cheated a bit and wrote the last 20K of this novel during Nanowrimo, then worked on a different story.

Soundtrack

Listen to my playlist for The Last Time We Met on Spotify!

This playlist was heavily influenced by one of James and Cedric’s past lives in the 80s. There are a few other songs that made me think of them, but mostly 80s.

  • Yazoo – Only You
  • Phil Collins – Don’t Lose My Number
  • George Michael – Careless Whisper
  • London Grammar – Hey Now
  • Ryan Adams – Wonderwall
  • Visage – Fade to Grey
  • Roxy Music – More Than This
  • Howard Jones – Things Can Only Get Better
  • Don Henley – Boys of Summer
  • M83 – Wait
  • The Cure – Let’s Go to Bed
  • U2 – New Year’s Day
  • Duran Duran – Save a Prayer
  • Genesis – Tonight, Tonight, Tonight
  • Talking Heads – This Must Be the Place
  • Prince – 1999
  • Information Society – What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy)
  • Genesis – Misunderstanding
  • Thompson Twins – Hold Me Now
  • Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over
  • Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin
  • The Waterboys – The Whole of the Moon
  • The Cars – Drive
  • The Jesus and Mary Chain – Just Like Honey

Drafts

Draft 1 (First Draft/Wattpad Draft)

Draft 2 (Second Draft, 80,000 words)

Research

For 2700 B.C. flashback:

For 1918 flashbacks:

For 1980s / AIDS epidemic flashbacks:

For 2001 measles outbreak:

For 2020 pandemic and events: