Writing Wrongs

March 03, 2006

So I didn�t blog for a couple of days, hoping to channel some of those words into actual writing words. But I was fighting a tremendous amount of reluctance this week. I kept wrestling with the notion that something about the end of my novel was �off.�

This morning on the way back from driving the kids to school, Closing Time was on the radio and the notion hit me. Part of me simply didn�t want to finish The Boys� Club. And I got all misty-eyed.

I swear, I am such a dork. I get to go back and revise and edit, so it�s not a final goodbye. But damn, I�ve spent nearly two years working on this book, thinking about it every day. That�s going to be hard to give up.

So it�s not so much that the ending was wrong. I simply didn�t want it to end.

Period.

So back at home, I write the second to the last scene. I take a break to work out and get a phone call. The company where I was contracting has just extended an offer for a fulltime position. And yeah, it was an offer I couldn�t refuse.

I end up back at the computer. I have a lead in for the final scene, always a good thing. I write. Check email. I write a few mores lines and have a pressing need to make tea. I write and decide the dogs need fresh water. Because part of me still does not want to finish the book.

But I do. At last. I type the last lines. They may not end up being the last lines, but for now, they�ll do. And then I double space and type The End even though it�s kind of cheesy. But it�s something I always do.

And then it�s time to get the kids (all that sporadic typing and dog-dish filling). In the car, I play U2�s Walk On and try not to cry, because I don�t want to seal my status as a complete dork.

So after nearly two years, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, a fair number of people telling me what I �should� write and �couldn�t� write for this book, and 133,795 words later, I finally have a complete draft of The Boys� Club.

It doesn�t get any better than this. Or worse.

Because part of me still wishes I wasn�t finished.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 8:23 p.m.

|