I Really Have Something

Over five years. 

Recently, I was looking for a document in one of the files I started during the initial planning of my novel.  I couldn't believe the date on it:  March 16, 2010.

Over five years ago, I began work on my novel.  Five years already.  The time's gone fast.  A lot has happened:  We had an unfortunate and serious falling out with our next-door neighbors (they moved away this summer); I had my first colonoscopy; and I broke my arm, recovering from that over the next months.  While we create, life goes on.    

Last month, I looked up from what I was doing and realized I'd completed all the major rewrites of my novel.  I'd had eleven chapters left (22 to 32).  I'd gone through each one to identify which needed full rewrites–to bring them up to the standard of the rest I'd been working on for years–and which needed only fine-tuning.  Since then, the full rewrites are done, and I'm well on my (sometimes frustrating, but often exhilarating) way to fine-tuning those last chapters.  

And the thought occurred to me:  I REALLY HAVE SOMETHING HERE.   

When I consider where I've taken my novel so far, I'm impressed by the breadth and scope of the narrative.  I can't believe the journey my characters and I have been on, where we've been, what we've done together.  And, as I consider those final eleven chapters, I'm impressed by how the pace is picking up, building to that all-important and exciting climax.  I feel it inside me.  It propels me forward.    

This is all new to me.  

Sure, over thirty years ago, I wrote another novel, start to finish, while I worked full-time for a bank.  Sort of.  The first two hundred or so pages were more planning than anything (this character will do this; that character will do that), which I realized, later rather than sooner, was ridiculous.  Instead of planning to write, why not write?  So I turned it around, got the characters acting for themselves, took them to the end of their stories.   

But that novel, as it turned out, was more about proving I could discipline myself enough to get the job done, not about putting in all the hard work needed to complete the thing.  As luck would have it, it also prepared me, in ways I couldn't have imagined, for my experience now.   

I can't even describe how exciting it is to be where I am.  This has been a life-long dream.  Ever since I was a little boy, I've wanted to be a writer.  I've dreamed about writing a book, one that might actually be good enough to submit for publication somewhere.  With the advancements in publishing today, I don't even have to submit my novel anymore (although that's still the plan).  If I want, I can self-publish.  Lots of writers are doing that, even important ones.  There isn't the stigma around it that there used to be.  It's an option.

It's easy to get caught up in what you're doing and forget to celebrate the milestones.  But I'm not going to do that.   

Tomorrow is my fifty-sixth birthday.  Not only will I celebrate that milestone age for me, but also I plan to celebrate what I've achieved so far in writing my novel.  I deserve to.  I've stuck with it, and I've done the work–half an hour, an hour, two, three, four, five at a time, day after day, week after week, month after month, looking at the same thing over, and over, and over, sometimes soaring with exhilaration, other times thinking I'll throw up if I have to look at this again.  I've stuck with this story over the long-haul.  I've believed in it, believed how important it is, when, countless times, I could have moved on to other projects, wanted desperately to move on to new, shinier, more enticing things, in the hope one of them would stick.  Had I done that, I wouldn't be where I am now.   

With only fine-tuning left to do before my novel is finished, I feel an excitement that I hope all aspiring writers will feel.  That I hope you'll feel.  Because I don't think there's anything more fulfilling.  To think that you've done what you've done, and an end's in sight…  

Wow!  

For a writer, at least at this stage of the process, I don't think it gets better than that. 

Keep writing.  Hang in there.  Everything you're going?  It's worth it.  It's so worth it.  Believe me.

Don't give up.  NEVER give up.