If you take a quick glance at the sidebar, you may note that I'm not listening to my Mood Music: Shaoda playlist today. I am, in fact, listening to the playlist I use for the Scum.

And why might that be?

Might it be because, like the Scum, I kick ass?

Might it be because I no longer need to listen to mood music for Shaoda, because I've finally finished The Willow Bough?

It just might!

I've never finished a novel on my own before. K.T. and I wrote Circle in the Sand together, and that was long enough for any three novels, but Willow Bough is the first long project that I've finished by myself.

I changed the ending again, because my most recent idea suddenly reminded me of AI, which would have been a wonderful, heartbreaking movie if they had just left off that saccharine, deus ex machina epilogue. But I didn't have to stop and think about how to fix it. I just looked up, and realized it was done.

And calling it a "long project" and a "novel" may be something of an exaggeration. Willow Bough currently weighs in at just about 40,000 words; typically you want around 50,000 to break the novel barrier. So it might be a longish novella instead.

But still, it was a heady feeling to type, "The End." and hit Save. I couldn't move for several minutes. And then I was shaking.

I took Matt and Penny out to dinner to celebrate. I danced around the house for half the night. After Penny went to bed, I had a couple of drinks. Disappointingly, I didn't even get a buzz from the drinks... maybe because the intellectual buzz was drowning out the alcohol.

The hardest thing to do, now, is going to be not looking at it for the next several weeks. If there's one piece of advice that professional writers seem to agree on, it's that when you're done with your draft, you need to put the piece down, lock it up, and walk away for a while. The length of time varies from writer to writer - Neil Gaiman suggests a week or two; Stephen King says a minimum of six weeks - but that resting period is essential.

Willow Bough is going to rest for about a month. Until after this audit at work is done and over and through. Then I should have time to sit down and read all the way through it, to get a feel for where the tone and voice slips, for what turns of phrase are awkward, for what essential elements are missing. (For example, I realized last night that I never gave even passing descriptions for two characters, and even though they're fairly minor, I should do that. But I know how to fit it in; actually doing it will wait.)

I know, I know - writing about writing is boring. But really, is it more boring than writing about Penny, or about work? (It could be worse. I could be writing about writing about sex.)

Tell you what; I'll give you something exciting, to make up for wading through all this boring writing talk: I found out last night that Kris has been put on bedrest, in an attempt to keep Sarah from making an early appearance.

--Liz