I reached it today. I wish I could describe how I feel right now. Like someone who puts the last piece in a 1,000-piece puzzle, except this was a 150,000-word puzzle.
Like — is this it? Really? As Rickie Lee Jones would say, Is This the Real End? A strange mix of exhilaration and anticlimax.
And it’s not like it’s really the end. Revision will be needed. Maybe a lot.
I can’t wait to see what my colleagues at the writers’ workshop, who I already feel closer to, in a strange way, than some people I have known for years, will say.
But then, I kind of can wait, for what if this novel really bites?
I had given myself permission for years not to ask that question. Now it’s done, and I have to. The question virtually asks itself, though fortunately or unfortunately does not answer itself.
I look forward to rejoining the world of normal people, people who go to movies without guilt, though I don’t think I belong there anymore.