The End!!

overcast, windy, rainy = Oh, who cares!!!

I finished the first draft!!!!

All that light from your candles worked - yay! Thank you. What a relief. But what a long day. Finally finished just before midnight. I was determined to finish yesterday, or bust. Almost busted.

I started at 8:30am and without breaks for lunch or dinner (ate beside the laptop) - only to walk Trudy a couple of times - I finished at 11:38pm.

The end is often very difficult to write...not only are there loads of red herrings and mis-directions and sub-plots to address, but there's also the issue of how and when everything is revealed. You've invested any amount of time reading the book - spent money - invested emotionally as well, so the end needs to be perfect. Fitting. Believable. Satisfying. Right.

So over and over and over I went. The same territory. One thing became clear...one of the subplots needs to go. It's not necessary and it just makes the ending all the more cumbersome. Indeed, a whole lot becomes clear once I reach the end. What is clear is...I've Finished!!!! Well, the first draft, but for me, that's always the hardest. I actually like editing. My first drafts are always messes too...there're a lot of names I need to change, stuff to streamline...everything is much clearer to me now.

But I sure wasn't going to sleep until I'd written The End, even if I had to pull a Hamlet and kill em all off...to be resurrected in another edit. I didn't - of course. And I know the end still isn't right, but I trust now that by the time this book gets into your hands it will be as it should be. Perhaps not as everyone would want it, but the book I meant to write.

phewww...

Will now take 2 weeks to de-stress. Though the next day or so, including today, is packed with stuff that's piled up and been left undone. Emails to answer, things to mail, all sorts of details that need attending to. Drove across to Vermont to do a mailing this morning. And realized something, as I waited at the US customs line - I'm very hurt that not once has anyone failed to recognize me from my passport photo. I look like Mussolini, on the meat hook, and the guards always look at it, look at me and wave me through. Damn.

Visited Markus briefly today...he's fitting in well, playing with the other horses. Jana is taking great care of him. Just need now to find him his permanent home. We have a home all picked out, with a great rider and terrific woman, but haven't got the okey-dokey from the rescue network.

Thank you again for all your support through the last couple months. I began the book in snow - and now the lilac are out...and you've stuck with me through it all. I figure when a first draft is finished I'm about 2/3rds done. A second draft, then edits, then smoothing...then off to my agent...

Phew.... I wish I could explain how this feels. A relief...an amazement...trying not to worry that it isn't right yet...I know it will be. Mostly I'm almost sick with excitement at the thought of sitting in front of the fireplace tomorrow, with a newspaper, a book and a cafe au lait....and just reading. What could be better?