A Reflection Upon Reaching "The End"

If you happen to keep up with my Twitter feed (and I'm arrogant enough to assume that everybody does), you know that for the past few days, I've been saying that I think my current novel is drawing to its conclusion. I've noticed the past few nights that I've had less and less story to tell, haven't been able to really just throw myself into the work and write with abandon the way that I did before.

At first, I thought this was because I had begun to realize that NaNoWriMo is over and that now, I have a sense of the amount of work behind me, I was less willing to just let myself fall into the work, let myself write without fear of failure. But more and more, I think that it's not because NaNoWriMo has come and gone, but because I've been approaching the end of the story not with elation, but with trepidation.

It seems weird, that I actually finished the story last night, and there wasn't this sense of satisfaction or completion, only a vague sense of emptiness, a feeling that I had lost something. At first, I thought it just meant that I wasn't quite done with the story, that maybe there was more to the epilogue than I had written. But when I sat down to write tonight, I realized that I had nothing to add, nothing more to say at this point. The story felt done.

Well, not done, because this is only a first draft and I know that there's still a great deal of work ahead of me. And of course, I've got a lot of ideas for a sequel that I didn't include, because then the pacing would have been totally thrown off. So it's not like this is the end, or even that this is the only story I'm ever going to write. NaNoWriMo showed me how to make the effort to right a lot, to write every day. It's up to me, now, to take that knowledge and apply it, to not allow myself to slip back into the lax and easy life of "oh, I don't feel like writing tonight, I'll do it tomorrow." That's one thing that I cannot allow to happen, even if this story is done. Even if there's no novel writing for a while as I let the current project simmer for a bit before I begin the editting process, that can't be an excuse to skip out on what has become my daily ritual, my daily requirement from myself. Maybe that means going back to blogging every day, which is something I told myself I would do anyway. Maybe it means working on some short stories for a while.

But going back to my original point, on being done and the feeling of completion. It's been a long, long time since I reached "the end" in novel writing; I wrote my first novel when I was sixteen and the sequel to that has been an ongoing thing that's still incomplete. I've tried to think back to how I felt as I wrote the last line on that first work; did I know it was the end as I wrote it? Or did I feel then as I do now, that I feel empty instead of complete? That I feel like although I have this story, this work that I can be proud of, that I can soon show the world, part of me will never be able to recover that earlier time of wonder and joy as I wrote with reckless abandon?

I actually asked my mom about this, before I sat down to write this blog post, to reflect on how I feel. She told me that she understands, because she said it's a lot like being a parent. You put in all this work, you make sure you've done all that you can, and... then it's over. Your job is done and it's up to your child (or your book, in my case) to go on to have his or her or its own experiences.

It's a very poignant moment. I mean, I've always hated reaching the last page in a favorite story, because it means my time with the characters that I know and love has come to an end. But I guess for some reason I never imagined that the same would be true for the writer as well; I guess I imagined that the fact that those characters live on in his or her head means that the writer is never truly removed from the creations. But I've begun to realize that this is false, and that the writer feels just as much disconnect and detachment when he or she reaches the end.

I mentioned before that I tried to think about what I experienced the first time I reached the end, if I felt fulfilled, if I felt something wonderful and life affirming. I think that perhaps maybe I did, because I was younger then (although I do not pretend to be an old veteran at 22) and more inexperienced, and I did not know then all of the things that I know now. I think perhaps I wrote then because I wanted the reward for the effort, the gold star that is being able to say truthfully "that I've written a book."

That hasn't been my motivation for this work. I write now not for want of reward or recognition or praise, but because it is in my nature to do this thing, because the years I stayed away from my craft were some of the darkest moments of my life and I can only truly feel at peace with myself when I am creating.

I think that, perhaps, though I do not have the urge to bust out a bottle of wine or smoke a cigar in celebration, I nevertheless do feel pleased with myself and with my achievement. Because for the last month and a half, I've written every single day, through sickness, intoxication, sleep deprivation, being overworked. I've forced myself to find time to write in the early hours of the morning, in brief slivers of time between here and there, and even on days when I really, really didn't want to make the effort, when it was easier to just be lazy.

I did what I aspired to do, and I have a new novel to show for it. And that makes me very, very happy.