Final Stretch

Some days you're really productive. Other days you spend 45 minutes dancing around the apartment to Kanye West and hoping ideas will come to you. Then you start going through your iPod and choosing theme songs for your main characters.

This morning, when I was running through the apartment in a towel looking for a notepad so I could write down an idea I had in the shower before I forgot it, I realized that if I really put my mind to it I can finish the first draft of this story before I leave for Chicago. I can't help but feel a little ambivalent about the idea. I've been working on this story since last December. I have a pile of notes, research, timelines (see Figure 1) and a printout of my rough draft thus far that you could use to beat rats to death. I even have some awesome character sketches courtesy of my buddy Lynn. You'd think I'd be ready.

Instead, I'm terrified. Part of me feels that I'll be relieved when it's done, but a bigger part is afraid that I won't know what to do now that I'm not writing it. Yet another part of me is looking forward to the editing process because it'll give me a chance to get to know my characters in a completely different way; the observer rather than the creator. Even then I won't really be done - it'll go to beta and I'll have to edit again before I start sending out queries with $20 bills tucked into them in an attempt to find an agent/publisher. So what am I worried about?

Oh, Kanye. You've failed me.