I saw the yarn harlot’s post yesterday (and, might I add, DAMN apple for hiding the darned link key) and it was about how she just powers on through the end of a book or a project and gets it done.
An admirable way of approaching things–I love her for it. (That and for her unabashed gloating over the damnd squirrel–I laughed my ass off, and cheered a victory for all yarn-loving folk that could be heard in Toronto I’m sure!)
Anyway, unlike Steph, I tend to have a sweet period of…well… waiting.
I put off the end. I don’t want it to end. I mean it’s silly, because I’ve got at least two weeks of reading and revising before it’s even close to sending off to all you folks who want to see it… (Roxie? Needletart? Lady in Red? You all still out there and game?) And then it’s not like I don’t repeat that last process when I get the manuscript back, but…
But I really love these people, I really love the way part I ends. I’m really proud of this book–unlike my Little Goddess books, which often seemed to write themselves, this one was set in another world and every word was sweat and blood and the result is a woven tapestry of words that feels like the one woven by one of those Celtic godesses (Orddu? Orwen? Orgoch? I forget which one wove…) because every scene is the holy mesh of divine spirit and rent flesh…(gees. I rhymed on accident…I think it’s teaching Beowulf–I’m reading it out loud and I found myself explaining the damned story in four beat rhythm. It was pretty cool, actually. )
Anyway, I want to be able to write this last bit in one big chunk so I can get it all down perfectly.
You’ve probably all figured out that finding big chunks of time in my house is a little like finding a diamond in the bottom of one of my kids’ five hundred toyboxes. It’s totally possible that such a thing exists, but my approach to finding it is moslty bewilderment and exhaustion, and that’s not a very scientific methodology.
And I’m okay with that. My characters are simply enduring that moment of breathless suspense that happens before the very best things in life.
PLease let this one not suck.
