The Big News

Yes, it's true, it's not a joke...

I have finished my book!

I really didn't know how this would feel.

I didn't know that as I saved the chapter and worked out my final word count (slightly under, but hey, I'll be editing soon anyway) I would laugh, and feel a bit like crying because I felt so happy.

I didn't know that, as I climbed the stairs to the bathroom after being surgically attached to my laptop for the last three hours solid while drinking cups of green tea, I suddenly wouldn't care if I sold my book at all.

That second one is the weird one. Of course I care if I sell my book -- I really want to, and who wouldn't? But I just had this weird feeling come over me that, even if I didn't sell the book, it wouldn't matter. What matters is that all my life, and more particularly over the last five years, I have wanted to write a book.

And now I've done it.

Even if it doesn't sell, even if I never do anything else or write anything else, even if I -- God forbid -- get knocked down by a bus tomorrow, I wrote and finished a book after always saying I wanted to do it. I know that I've written on here that one of my life goals is to write a book and have it published/see it on the shelf in a bookstore etc., but even just the writing and finishing seems like the fulfilment of a goal in itself.

Weird.

I don't know quite how I'm going to celebrate yet. I'll let you know. In the meantime, thank you to anybody who has read this blog, left me comments, followed my progress, given me help, advice, inspiration -- anything. I hope the journey to the finish line wasn't too painful.