Over the years, I’ve written lots of things — plays, poems, stories — some of them quite long. A few are fairly well written.
Finishing them felt good, felt like something had been done.
Not like this, though.
As of a few minutes ago, the Second Draft of my first novel is finished, clocking in at just under 155,000 words.
The book’s not done yet. Not by a longshot.
But the Second Draft is done.
And so, I get out one of my five pewter cups and pour myself the last half of my very small bottle of pomegranate liqueur.
It’s a very small bottle, like something out of Alice in Wonderland.
And it tastes . . . good.
I drank the first half of the bottle when I finished the initial draft, earlier this year.
I’ll save the bottle, just a way to mark the milestone.
This book started almost five years ago — here, on this day as a matter of fact.
Five years.
Feels longer, somehow.
And yet, it took me longer to write than I thought it would. Lots of reasons why, not the least of which is that I pretty much only wrote at night, after everyone else had gone to bed.
Meaning, of course, that this was a book written long after midnight. A book written in a state half-waking, half-dreaming.
Sometimes, when I had a full day free, I’d shirk my chores and try to write as much as possible. But there were maybe three or four of those altogether, over the past five years.
The longest stretch of time I wrote for was about six hours. The shortest, less than a minute.
But still, the Second Draft is done.
And tomorrow, of course, I’ll start on the third.
The deadline clock has been reset.
I’ve given myself twenty-three days.