I Finished The Thing

I did it. I finished a manuscript. I typed The End, even though it's just the beginning.

I haven't finished writing a novel in...a while. The last time I did was a few years ago. It was the project that got me into Pitchwars as an alternate. With it I had many requests, fulls and partials, an R&R and even a referral when the agent who requested the R&R ended up passing, which is kind of a big deal. It meant that even though it wasn't right for her she believed in it enough to pass it along to someone else. And though that agent did end up rejecting it as well (ugh, I hate that R word, it's so...mean) I had hope. My writing didn't completely suck, and I was getting closer.

Here's the thing though, with hope also came the doubts. Which can be difficult to move past. I got a little lost along the way. I didn't know where to go next. My mojo took a hit. I struggled to write and to focus. I struggled from one project to the next, unsure where to go from there. I started and stopped multiple WIPs. Then the idea for my next novel hit me. It was something I felt strongly about, something that had been on my mind for a while. And it took me almost 18 months to finish the damn thing.

During the course of writing my newest manuscript, I had to maneuver around a few stumbling blocks. Like the difficulties presented by caring for a newborn. Then there was that time we moved. Twice. In less than a year. Oh, and one of those moves was thousands of miles across the ocean. Yeah, it has been a doozy of a year. But I persevered and here I am. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad that I can still write, because don't we all doubt our ability to do so when it seems like we're going around in circles going nowhere when in reality we're making more progress than we thought?

Writing is hard, it probably won't get easier, and might even get harder, but at least I get to learn something new about myself along the way. Now I just need to get through revisions. Like 10000 times. #writinglife