Three Years Later

I was still working at the Job from Hell when I started my novel, so this was a while ago. I've been with The Store since Nov. 2002, so I probably started the novel sometime in 2002. It's 2005. I've put three years of my life into this. And it's almost over.

I wrote my novel in two parts so that when I was totally blocked on where to go with one part, I had another part to take my mind off it. There have been weeks where I haven't looked at it at all, working on other pieces instead. But I got a creative burst for a period of about three months and really hammered out several large portions of it. Now it's almost done.

I'm maybe ten pages away from the end of the beginning of the novel. Once Part the First is done, I only have the rest of Part the Second to finish and that's pretty close to done too. And I'm absolutely terrified. I'll have finished the novel I put three years into. What do I do next?

I don't even know if I have the confidence to get this published. I don't know if I have the confidence to try. I'm a little envious of Baby Sis in some ways. She knows she wants people to read what she writes - possibly in a different format than mine, but still, she knows. I don't know what I'll do if I finally get the nerve to shop this book around and no one wants it.

Writing is such a huge part of my life. It's all I've done and all I've ever done since I understood that I could do it. Telling stories and making up images in my head to put them to page has been what I do. If I couldn't write, I think I'd explode. So what do I do if no one wants to read it? How will I ever be able to put anything down on a page again?

I know I shouldn't be afraid or nervous. Someone will like it.

So now, my book is almost finished. Three years later, it's practically done. I'm afraid to finish it. I'm afraid that once it's done I won't know what to do with myself. I have other stuff that I've started: short stories, the beginnings of dozens of novels that are like twenty or thirty pages in but no further. I have things to do, but this book is my baby. I don't know how I'll feel when it's finally complete.