almost there (round two)

 I’ve got two scenes left, maybe 4 hours of writing will do it, then I’ll have written an entire novel. If you told 18 year old me I would have laughed in your face and not believed you. But if you told 6 year old me, well that me would begin jumping around with excitement and wonderment. 18 year old me would have asked you questions and demanded proof, but 6 year old me would just want to know how we did it and be so very proud. If you told me a year ago what I would accomplish in a years times I’m not sure even that me would truly believe it could be done. 


Even if only my family reads this book, if only one person enjoys it, if I can just see it in print, it will be enough. Because I will have physical proof that I can do big things, that I can complete impossible tasks. 


I think I have been writing for weeks about how concluding the story feels a lot like grief. When I’m reading, and I read an awful lot, and I get to the last 50 pages I tend to leave them. Doesn’t matter how quickly I read the rest or how long its taken me to slug through the story, at the very end I’ll walk away. It can take me weeks to come back and read those last 50 pages. I don’t like the ending of things, but I dislike unfinished business even more so I always come back. Writing the end of my own book has proven to be no different. 


Its has been freeing to write the first draft, because its only job is to exist and therefore it is good. I love to edit though, but I’m scared that when I open it back up I’ll find nothing but nonsense and ruins of what could have been good. It’s a little unfounded and irrational, but emotions seldom are. 


I wrote this story more for me than anything, so its an odd thing to think that more than just my eyes will see it one day. If nothing else, one day when I have kids of my own I’ll have a loving bedtime story to read to them. 


Really all I’m trying to say it that writing the end of the story feels a lot like moving to a new country and leaving it all behind. I don’t know, its like grief and that’s all I can think to explain it. All my writing energy is going into writing the end of my book, so this will have to do. I’ll leave you in suspense for next week, where I most diffidently will be a mess trying to recap the process of writing my first novel. Thanks for coming along with my in the journey, see you next week! 

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