I did it! Friends, I finished my book! I turned it in (late) Sunday night!
Y’all. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t know if I’d ever be done doing it. You know? I was writing, I was moving forward, but the end just kept getting farther and farther away from me.
It’s still not DONE done–the ending is not right. Though it’s very close! The scene happens in the right place story-wise and setting-wise, with the right people…it’s just not quite THERE yet and it’s bugging me. I’ll probably have to forget it to get it right at this point, now. Need it to be in Siri’s hands while I do Something Else, and then when I finally get to the end in the next edit, HOPEFULLY I will see how to write it right.
Here’s the technique that saved me in the end, when the ending kept getting farther and farther away and I thought I should just set fire to the manuscript and then crawl under my bed and cry: I started writing in a notebook. I bought new, pretty Sharpie gel pens in green, blue, black, purple, and red (because I needed more pens, yep. Uh huh.)
I wrote story in blue or black. If I thought of something that needed to go in earlier, I wrote it in green, and put a green star in the spot it went. When I didn’t know what to write next, I freewrote in purple. Red (obviously) was to correct goofs or mark things I needed to check against the manuscript.
Revolutionary? No. Helpful? Oh yes. Because, among other things, it kept me writing. I’m learning (though I forget it about every five minutes) that I really and truly do think best in writing. Tell me to go think about something, and one of two things will happen:
1. I’ll go do the dishes or something and my mind will wander off and I won’t think about the thing more than twice, very shallow,
or
2. I’ll go journal about the thing, and actually freaking THINK about it. Pros, cons, feelings…like you do. When you journal.
Why can’t I remember that I need to write stuff down? I don’t know. Maybe I need to write it down.
Write. It. Down.
Kd Sarge