As of 10 PM on 25 June, 2010, I became the proud "owner" of a completed manuscript.
Completed first-draft.
I wrote The End.
Well, Y made me go back and write, The End, after I had saved everything and closed down the computer with a satisfied smile on my face.
I had to re-open everything--computer, Word, file--and then re-save to my thumb drive. The End had to be backed up in case of fire.
War. Famine. PC fail.
Saved, re-saved, backed-up, re-opened to check that the saving worked, saved again for good measure, then everything closed and shut down again.
(Of course, as I was writing the last chapter, all I could think was, I write crap, I write crap, I will never be Jenny Crusie when I grow up because I write crap.
I do not care that she also says she writes crap because all of us know that her crap is no comparison to my crap. Or is it the other way round? That mine doesn't compare to hers?
Oh, Crap. I don't know.
But getting back to me and my crap. I mean, first draft. Maybe one day, maybe some day, I will actually think, this is ok. But not last night. Not today.
Not when I am thinking about conflict and theme and core story and all that kind of thing. Not when I am thinking, I haven't any of that. I couldn't identify it in the novels and shortstories Dr Galvin had us read in 11th and 12th grades and I'm not certain I can identify it in my own book.
So don't ask me.)
But all that aside. All that ignored. Bottom line. I wrote THE END (thanks, Y).
I told the Crit Group. The Rockville 8.
We yahooed.
I told my family. I called a friend. I wrote Joe.
I made an appointment to meet with an editor at RWA.
Because I became a finisher.
As I said was possible in my last post. Possible to finish. And the only way to truly get published is to finish the damn book, complete the story, and start the rounds of revision that will surely keep me busy through the autumn.
But my book is written. Far far far from complete. But it is written. It is The Ended.
I am now a novelist.
With my very own, hand-written, brand-spanking-new Novel.
