In which I write The End

I get crazy when I finish a yarn. My friends can all tell you. The bigger the project, the crazier I get.

I have to be a warrior; a slave I couldn't be. A soldier and a conqueror, fighting to be free.

Now my iPod, Podkayne, plays Wishbone’s Ash‘s “Throw Down the Sword” from Argus – an album that helped steer me to becoming a fantasy and science fiction writer.  The only more appropriate song would be “Warrior,” from the same album, which has rung in my mind all day. That’s the chorus quoted in the caption.

Whoa, and now it’s, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” by, I guess, Bon Jovi. That’s kind of appropriate too.

Joe just called. He asked me how I was doing. I said fine, and that I was literally writing the very last paragraph of the rough draft of The Dinosaur Lords (okay, not quite; maybe a couple from the end, as it turned out.) He said that was wonderful news. It is.

Of course he knows better than everybody how nuts I get when I’m finishing off a tale.  It’s a frothing brew of writer’s frenzy, fear, exaltation, nameless ecstasy, and separation anxiety.

Now imagine what it’s like after 991 pages, 274,000 words, and 6½ years. If this damned novel were a kid it’d have its own Xbox 360 by now. And I don’t have an Xbox.

I – whoa. Am stunned. Numb. Blurred around the edges.

Scared shitless. My life just changed. The book is real now. Complete, draft or no. There’s no more excuses; no more places to hide. I have to get to serious doing.

It’s great. Really. Of course I don’t feel that now. I don’t feel anything much. Not even hungry.

I hope I can feel this enough. Celebrate enough. Really, that’s important. Trust me on this.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, friends and readers – and thanks, Scott Phillips, for right this instant Tweeting me congratulations – thank you for your faith in bearing with me. For those who thought I’d never do it, I hope you’re as pleased to be proven wrong as I am to prove you wrong. No hard feelings: you had no reason to believe.

To all those who believed in me, thank you more than words can truly encompass. To those who’ve thought of me as a sad case of wasted potential – well, I think you’re about to see that while I may have wasted time, I’m achieving that potential. At last. Thank you for caring.

And now – I’m out of words.

PS – I appear to’ve missed congratulatory Tweets from Happy Curmudgeon and El Neil. Thanks to you too!

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