done!

Today was a long, brutal slog through the most difficult parts of my novel, but I'm thrilled and relieved to say that I met my goal for the weekend and finished the second draft of my novel!

I woke up early this morning, of my own volition, and was sitting at my desk and writing by 8:30am. When I told my dad this over the phone later in the day, he basically implied that I must have a fever -- but the need to finish the draft was weighing on me. I spent the morning writing the epilogue, stopping around eleven to heat and eat some frozen enchiladas. I took a break after that, but the break was still writing-related; I had an idea for how to start out a query letter to find an agent, and when I wrote it down, I ended up writing the whole thing. It's something that I'm going to play around with for the next couple of months, since I want the letter to be as perfect as possible, but I think I made a good start.

After that, I took a shower, then settled down and wrote some more before taking another break in the late afternoon for my weekly call with my parents. My dad mentioned that, after reading yesterday's blog post, he debated writing the consummation scene for me -- but I politely turned him down by pointing out that he would likely use too many verbs and not enough adjectives. Ugh. I ran to Starbucks for an iced latte, mostly because I felt that I should step outside the apartment at least once, and then promptly locked myself up again to finish the book.

And other than a brief conversation with my brother, and a break to reheat some of the chili I froze a couple of weeks ago, I've written straight since five p.m. But the last brutal push was worth it. Over the course of the day, I successfully completed the epilogue, wrote/rewrote several connecting scenes between major portions of my book, and wrote the dreaded consummation scene (using *lots* of adjectives, and only one use of 'manroot', which is my favorite absurd romance novel euphemism).

It's finally ready to send off for feedback, although the thought of other people reading it is about as creepy-crawly-freaky as the thought of giving my next business presentation naked. There is something incredibly dangerous about opening yourself up like that -- after pouring my heart into 400 pages of this book, it's as much a part of me as, well, me. But I'm also committed to making it better, and to selling it, and to writing another one, and the only way I will accomplish any of that is through honest, unflinching feedback. Luckily, most of the people who would be good to give feedback on it live far away, and so I won't have to actually *see* any disappointed faces...just infer it from their emailed responses.

So that was my weekend. Is it any wonder that I feel more exhausted than I have at the end of most of my workweeks? Too bad I have to go to the office tomorrow; but while tomorrow will be packed with meetings and clearing my inbox from my birthday vacation, the rest of the week doesn't look too bad. And I'm not going to look at my manuscript again for at least a week -- I think I need to spend some time socializing and recharging before I go back to it again.

The only other thing of note is that it's Terry's birthday! Happy birthday Terry! And with that, it's time for bed.