It is finished

(Hey, I figure as long as I'm waxing biblical, I might as well steal quotes.)

After three weeks, it is finished, at 24,241 words and 95 pages. I finished The Devil's Garden on Thursday night, but wasn't satisfied with it. I had completed all of the plot elements I'd intended, and the characters had changed in a satisfying way, yet there was something missing. The ending was rather flat and I wasn't sure what to do with it.

I fiddled with the last page a bit on Friday morning, some more during work, then finally came up with just what I wanted on the train ride home. What was lacking was a wrap-up of the theme, plus a little bit of meat to dangle on the hook to entice the reader to want more, since this entire exercise has been done in hopes of garnering the interest of agents and publishers in Anamnesis. (Funny how along the way, I fell in love with the characters anyway. But that's the only way it works for me, really. And that's what makes rejection even more painful.)

So now that I'm done, I have a bit of post-partum depression. My baby is no longer part of me, no longer belongs to me. I have pushed it into the world to make its own way. What can I do to assuage this feeling? Why, write another, of course! Luckily, in the world of artistic creation, being addicted to that feeling of newness, of having something all my own, is an advantage instead of a pathological defect.

But before that, of course, there's editing and rewriting. Who says I have to cut the apron strings just yet? She hasn't even been weaned, for heaven's sake! So...who out there would like to volunteer to be a reader and help change diapers?