Perfect World

I started writing on November 15th.

Just a solid first chapter that centered around my sister calling me by the nickname she has for me.

I started the story the day before the Blizzard of ‘77, and then included a story I’d heard, as a kid, about a man who’d taken his half of the house (during divorce proceedings) by using an excavator.

Just writing for writing’s sake, and a funny thing happened:

The characters took off.

By December 1st, I was all in.

Wrote into my phone, thinking about their lives. I knew I had something special because I was gifted the plot, and it held a message.

Something I had to say.

On Monday night, I went to sleep, knowing that I had to get out of bed around 5:00.

Woke up at 1:00 anyway because I had the final few pages that I needed.

I wrote them into my phone, and when I woke up, I wondered if what I’d written down out of a deep sleep was going to make any sense.

It did.

That afternoon, I typed the final few pages, and a book that I’d started writing on November 15th was completely done by February 10th.

About 60,000 words in less than 3 months.

I’ve been writing for decades…

…I’ve never turned something out so quickly.

‘Perfect World’ is the title.

Now, there is work left to do.

I have to read it a few times, and rewrite it as well, but I don’t know how extensive that will be.

I need to get my fellow artists involved who help turn my words into a finished product, and most of all, I have to say farewell to my characters.

Which is the absolute worst!

They kept me great company for a little while.

And I know, there’s a darkness coming because whenever I finish something, I get down.

Part of that is the:

“What’s next?”

And part of it is just a loss of adrenaline.

Jill and Anna and Ben and Lonnie and Uncle Rico and Robert are out of my life.

Sad!

And I know I should take a break, and not worry about moving on so quickly.

In a perfect world, I’d be fired up about it, but that’s not how this works.

I’ve been doing it long enough to know.