The Home Stretch

I can see the end. I am on the home stretch. Within about fifty pages, more or less, I will probably be finished with my first draft of my next novel.

I think, for the moment, it is going to be about a two hundred page book, which is a good sized read.

Although for me, when one of my favorite authors writes a really big novel, I get all a'quiver inside because I loooove big books.

That's reading them, not writing them.

In my experience, a book writes itself and will be as long as the story it has to tell.

I know you have read books where there is obviously filler, or the ending of the story just stops, or is lame.

I've read very good books until the last chapter or so, or even the last few pages, and the author makes ruination out of something that was pretty good.

I hope I never do that.

Anyway, once the first draft is complete (or I think it's complete - I thought "Out on a Limb of the Family Tree" was finished three or four times), the hard work begins.

Proof reading. Editing. Yuck.

And after I've done it myself, ad nauseum, I humbly ask others to do the same for me.

I would never send something unpolished to the publisher. I want it neat and complete.

I will hope not to get grumpy, not to become obsessed, and just be focused on the job.

Yeah. Right.