AT LONG LAST!

It's DONE!

I FINISHED IT!

I typed the last words yesterday afternoon, and today at our monthly Romance Writer's Meeting I got my chocolate and a round of applause.

That applause felt awesome. (You can take the boy out of acting, but you can't take the acting out of the boy.)

Seriously, I accomplished several breakthroughs yesterday.

First of all: I completed something that I started.
Second: It was something for which I had no TRUE deadline.
Third: I did it because I loved it.
Fourth: I turned out not half bad.
Fifth: I did it in a reasonable amount of time. (More on that ina minute)
Sixth: I worked till it was DONE.
Seventh: I now know I can write a complete story/book from begining to END!

All this because I slowly pecked away at it.

And as for the the "reasonable amount of time" thing, well, here's my reference for that.

At today's meeting, I was asked by a couple of fellow members how long it took me to write my first one. I told them, and they were COMPLETELY STUNNED.

They both told me it took them roughly TWO YEARS to write theirs.

And one of them had written a book that was EXACTLY the same length as mine!

What a RELIEF!

Here I was thinking I wasn't taking this whole thing seriously enough, and I come to find out that I'm a tad prolific in my writing.

I can DO this.

I'm not saying my rough draft is anything better than a VERY rough draft. But the point is I got the ROUGH draft done in ONE THIRD of the time it seems to have taken other people.

Which means: I have a passion for this. I wanted it done, because I believed in it, and felt, intrinsically, that I could do it.

Even if this manuscript never sees the light of day, I will know that I did it.

And more importantly, I can do it AGAIN!

The other short contemporary writer and I have decided to share our stories with each other and see if we can't help each other rejig our respective manuscripts to get the into some kind of acceptable form for submission.

Next steps.

I am SO excited.

And proud.

Can I just revel in that for a moment?

J.D