Tuesday 13 September 2011

At Last

So. It's finished.

I wanted to find a picture of a limp rag - wrung-out and dripping - to express exactly how I feel, but I couldn't muster the energy to look for one.

That said, if you can imagine a limp rag with a quiet feeling of inner triumph, that would be even closer to what I'm trying to evoke.

It's been a long hard slog. But on Sunday - after a weekend when I wrote frantically, because it felt like if I didn't finish soon I'd go mad - I finally did it. The last sentence is - no, wait, I don't want to give too much away... the last word is "rain". It's a good last word, I think. And I was very, very glad to write it.

Now I'm going to take a (short) holiday. I've got books reserved for me at the library, a room to clean, laundry to do, lines to learn for King Lear, sleep to catch up on, and errands to run. I've got a new book to think about - and I can think about it now, without feeling guilty, like I'm peeking at the bottom tray of a box of chocolates before I've eaten the last couple of toffees on the top layer... Paradise.

And then - oh, did I mention the edits? I've got a whole page of them already, so many that there are major continuity issues in the book where I changed my mind half way through and didn't go back to update the beginning. It's going to be quite a lot of work, I think - although right now, in my haze of fatigue and euphoria, I'm sure that once I've done it Mazecheat's going to be brilliant... But it can wait, at least for a few days. 

I might even start that next book, if I'm feeling self-indulgent.

3 comments:

  1. I just did a fairly embarrassing happydance around my room. I only finished Gamerunner a few weeks ago and loved it to an absolutely unreasonable level and now there's promise of a sequel already existing somewhere in the world?? Made my day.

    Congrats for finishing the first draft! Even if it does need a heap of edits at least it's -done-!

    Now I'm going to go away, perhaps practice my happy dance for when the edits are done (one needs to be prepared for these things) and come up with wild conspiracy theories about why the last word is 'rain'.

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  2. Excellent! Thank you - I'm so pleased you liked Gamerunner - and you also made me laugh out loud. :) Will keep you posted - hopefully there will be many more occasions for happydances...

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  3. I can imagine that triumphant limp rag very well, and from what I remember of Gamerunner, 'rain' sounds like a very good last word.

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