Mission Accomplished!

At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar.
And then I know they are finished.
-- Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett (1884-1969) English writer

I have done it. It's done. Finished. Fini. Rifinito. Acabado. Beendet.*

Whew, what a feeling. To have assigned yourself a task and worked hard at it until its completion is the greatest sense of accomplishment you can imagine. I have finished something I started.

Well, sort of.

What we're now calling the "first draft" is complete at a slim 71,000 words (my normal range is 93-95,000) and has been whisked away through the ethernet to my illustrious critique partner, Wonder Triplet #3. It does need some serious work, but I am so sick of looking at it that I have entrusted it to J.T.'s capable hands with no further qualms. She will slosh through it looking for plot holes, weak character development, continuity and inconsistencies, to see where it could use some beefing up, and to make sure the story makes sense and has a satisfactory conclusion. I'm one of those writers who has to have all loose ends tied up by the time the reader turns the last page. It's a thing with me.

With that burden lifted, I'm going to take a week off from writing and dive into my TBR pile. My goal for this week is to catch up the New Year's resolution reading list. Little Bit is leaving for church camp in the morning and will be gone until Friday. Since The Tall One and The Boy are self-sufficient and independent teenagers, they demand less from me as far as time and attention than Little Bit does. One or two good movie nights and a couple of games of cards ought to satisfy their Mom-time requirements for the week, and those are easier to schedule with little sister otherwise occupied. All of that and I'll still probably have plenty of time to read. A couple of years ago we took the kids to St. Louis for Spring Break, and between the zoo, the Science Museum, a college basketball game, the Arch and a run through the war museums downtown, I managed to read four books. This week all I'll have to work around is five hours a day devoted to my part-time job and writers' group meeting on Wednesday night.

So, J.T. has as much time as she needs (and can spare) to read this book and see whether it can be salvaged. I'm going to kick back and relax while I can, because I know that once I get the manuscript back, there'll be some serious work to do.

I'll keep you posted on my progress this week, and the list there on the left will be added to as I finish each book.

Add to your list, too. It's good for you.

=) JB

*French, Italian, Spanish and German translations (English "finished") courtesy of SYSTRAN Language Translation Technologies (SYSTRANet).