The end of the book

So I never thought I'd say this but it looks like my book is now finished. Okay, okay, so it's not really finished. I can see myself going through it again and again (especially the beginning part, which goes on a bit) and revising, and still making it tighter and better.

But I have reached the point where I will get the entire book printed and call it a first draft. Hopefully tomorrow I will walk to the printing shop, and have it bound and made nicely into a little notebook, and shout for joy when I can finally hold it in my hands, all those hours of work. I started it in Mallorca, on a sunny eighth of January, having just read Isabel Allende's 'La suma de los dias' and borrowing her lucky book start date. I wrote first on my big dining table, which Laurie insisted on shipping over, and when the dream of Mallorca was over, I continued writing, mostly in coffee shops all over Vancouver, and sometimes at the library too. It is no more than a guess but I'm saying 400 hours of work have gone into that book, a year and a haf of never being away from it for very long. It is a huge achievement even if it never sees the inside of a bookstore, if no one ever reads it but my husband and a couple of close friends. I wouldn't have guessed I would have had the persistence to see it through crises of confidence, and life upheavals, and the surprisingly ardous job of looking after my two little ones full time.

Now, truly, ahead of me, is what is often thought the most difficult part: the knocking on doors to try to get it published. But not yet. For now I will bask in the glory of the bound copy, and place it somewhere safe and out of reach of the children, and just be happy that it's done. Tomorrow, when I leave for the library in the morning, I will start something new, and leave my book aside for a while, until such time as I can read it with something approaching detachment. At the moment, I'm far too close to it.

Happy, happy, happy,

Sylvia