Boom, Done!

To recap, this year I started out with a goal of writing 15 minutes a day. I kept that up for over three months. After that I wrote consistently but not every day. In July at Blogher I attended a session on finishing long writing projects. Before we left the room we declared our goals publicly. Mine was to have the first draft of my novel done by Christmas.

As Christmas neared I began to get antsy. I had trouble writing every day then trouble even writing consistently. It seemed obvious that I was afraid of the success of finishing but that didn't make it any easier to conquer. Finally I got myself in front of the pages for about an hour a day and one day, the Wednesday before Christmas, I came to the end of the book. I was so surprised, and still not a little afraid, that I went back and re-read the last two pages to be sure I was finished.

A full week before my deadline I finished it.

Even the day after I finished it I was thinking about how much it will have to change in the next revision and how that revision will certainly not be the final one. I resisted the urge to dive right in. I know at least enough to know that this project needs to cool a bit before I go back at it. I also need a chance to cool a bit. I want to savor the fact that I did it.

I wrote a novel.

Damn. I didn't know I could do that. I suspected but I did not know.

Now I do.