Closing in (1141 words)

It's really hard to end a book, you know? Almost everything interesting has happened already, just not the punch line -- the thing where you settle the new equilibrium from the resolution thingy that happened at the climax -- and in my case you unsettle it, just a little bit.

But there's that pacing thing. You can't do the punchline right on the heels of the climax, or the book feels like "what? what just happened? Did I read a book, or was I imagining it?" Things have to have time to sink in. But not too much time, because the reader knows, being literate in the tradition in which we write, that nothing much more is going to happen, and if it takes too long happening, it's just boring, because the reader's getting ready to leave, picking up their hat from the floor, making sure their keys have not dropped behind the seat, counting heads so they don't leave anybody in the theater.

So I think I have between 500 and 1000 words left to the draft. I'm going to print the first few chapters today and take them with me to Bingo to work on. I don't think I'm going to write those last words today: I have to do various tasks before Bingo.

I started this in June. I never wrote my fastest on any day, but this is the fastest I have ever finished a draft. It's the shortest I've ever written, though, I think.

the last word

Okay, it's finished. The first draft is finished. Now I go clean my room.