Yesterday I turned in the first half of my manuscript. Despite the insane deadline, writing this book is going far more smoothly than the first; I’ve already written a portion equivalent to the entire length of my first book, and in a third the time. Yet when I handed over the completed manuscript for the first book, it contained ample evidence of flailing, flop sweat, and desperation – sentences that trailed off without an ending, truly embarrassing grammatical mishaps.
And what I turned in yesterday… well, it was at least finished, though far from perfect. On the contrary; parts of it were a mess, and as usual, I was left with the feeling that if I had just had a liiiiiiittle more time, I could have massaged it into shape. But it’s obvious that an extra four years or so of constantly writing on deadline, learning to organize my time better, and figuring out how to write through those soul-killing days when I’d rather be doing practically anything else, have paid off. Writing this book hasn’t been easy, but so far it hasn’t been nearly as horrendous as I’d feared.
The word meter has reset to zero, and after a couple of days of catching up email, cleaning the house, and replenishing the well, I’ll get to work and do it all again for five more weeks.
Crazy, I tell you.
