Friday, August 28, 2009

Finishing the book

(above, chapters 1-13, parceled out over the table, with only 15 chapters left in the pile!)

Six years later, and I'm nearly done. And this time, I mean it. Sure, I've said this before... Dozens of times. I've finished what I thought were final drafts, only to have my editor suggest a couple of small changes that have led to two more years of work. But THIS TIME... Yes, I truly see the end. You know the scene in the film FIGHT CLUB, when Edward Norton kicks his own ass? Well, that's sort of what writing a book is like. Each character has just enough of my terrible, wicked, or wonderful attributes to make me feel an empathetic surge to continue wanting to write (oh, the ego, a wonderful thing), and yet they each have become their own Brad Pitt- breathing, fighting, living beings, so foreign to me, that it really means I need to take a step back to still recognize them as my own creations (and here enters the libido!).

Right now I'm going through the book, chapter by chapter, to make sure I've answered all the questions the book poses, and just to make sure I don't go off on too many tangents (for those of you who know me, you'll know that this is a problem... a daily struggle... See?! I'm doing it now!). After I'm done, I'm going to send it off, once again, to my editor, a wonderful women who's advice I've come to appreciate very much.

Who knows... Perhaps this time, she'll think it's nearly done, too. If not, then in a year, you'll hear me say once again that I've reached the finish. But for now, I mean it when I say that the damn thing is nearly completed. My goal is to get the book published. But even now, so far into the writing process, I feel like a goddamn Super Woman. It's an amazing feeling.

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