Today was a holiday. While that doesn’t mean as much as it used to, having a three year old who needs entertainment during holidays, it doesn’t mean that I was able to spend a good chunk of the morning writing. Now, I’ve been posting on this site everyday since 2019 started, but with camp and work it has been the middle of December since I really had the time and bandwidth to work on my next novel.
This is especially exciting because I am really closing in on what will be the first draft of this WiP (work in progress.) For me, this is really one of the best stages of writing. Sure, there are other great parts of writing out there. There is the beginning, where the entire stage is empty and the ideas are all competing with each other to come out first. There is that middle section, where you are really starting to see the connections lock in and build to something great. And, I guess there is editing, where you polish the jewel you are producing and hope that it doesn’t shatter. That’s nice.
But this section, where the end is so close you can almost taste it. Where you know that a finished version is about to exist. Months of work (or more/less depending on your goal/speed) is about to reach that first flower of fruition. That is a sweet moment. It is so sweet that it is actually taking a little bit of willpower for me to not just rush into the novel after this.
But I’m not. I know myself, my pace and my limits. Tomorrow is a another day back at work. If I dove into writing now, something would suffer. It could be my writing, because goodness am I tired. It could be my sleep, because all that imagination might just wake me up. It could be my entire tomorrow, because nothing makes teaching harder than being tired and preoccupied.
Instead, I’ll just let what I have left for this rough draft play over and over in my head. One full chapter, two chapter fixes (to resolve some initial status changes of characters), and a goal of less than 3000 remaining words. That is all I have to do and this rough draft will be over. And then the saccharine feeling of accomplishment can wash over me.
And I’ll try to hold on to that feeling for as long as I can. Because not only is there all the editing and fixing left to accomplish, but then there is the whole other pain that is actually figuring our how to convince people to buy this book. Yuck.
But let’s not dwell on that now. Let’s just go to the happy place of finishing that rough draft. Happy place.
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