The Last Word
If you know anything about me, you know that I love to make lists. Christmas lists. Shopping lists. Lists of things to do. Lists of things I’ve done. Aside from the obvious joy I get from organizing my life, I love the rush of satisfacation I get when I can check something off my list.
And for the last three months or so, I had plunked down on my calendar: 12/1 Golden Spiral manuscript due to editor.
It was an ambitious deadline and, I’ll be honest, there were more than a few days where I looked at that “To-Do” item on my list and despaired of ever being able to draw a line through it.
So, yesterday was 12/1. The Big Day. The Can’t-Miss-It Deadline.
And today, I have had the extreme joy of checking it off my list.
It’s amazing to me to think–and to be able to say–I’m done with my second book. I’m not sure the reality has set in quite yet. (Of course, that may be because I wrote nonstop for 12 hours yesterday and went to bed at 2:30, didn’t fall asleep until 3:30, and got up at 7:00 to come to work. Ah, the glamorous life of an author!) But every time I’ve be able to tell someone those magical words “I’m done,” I feel a little thrill of impossible joy. An unspeakable relief of having set a goal and, more importantly, of having met it.
And every day I doubted and fretted and struggled, my husband was always quick to remind me: Just get it down on paper. You can’t change what you don’t have.
So now I have 93,882 words down on paper. And however many of those words end up changing during the reading, revision, and editing stages of the process, I know one thing: this experience has changed me as well.
Now, let’s see, what’s my deadline for book three?