(sing the blog post title to the tune of “holly jolly Christmas” for the full experience)

I am not telling you to take a hammer to your holiday to intentionally make it more difficult than it needs to be. If you are having a bog standard, by the numbers Yuletide, then by all means, enjoy it!

But for the rest of you who are watching with building dread as you approach the emotional event horizon, Christmas is a whole other ballgame.

Maybe you are haunted by the ghosts of dysfunctional family Christmas’s past. The fear that your barely cohesive family unit will encounter the crisis that is perpetually stalking you. The stress of trying to handle the erratic behaviours, dependencies and mental health issues of the people surrounding you.

Maybe you’re trying to stay dry in a booze-soaked season. Maybe all the religious talk makes you nervous and uncomfortable. Maybe you’re broke and alone.

Whatever the reason, it’s okay. It is okay to have a complicated Christmas. You choose how you want to interact with all the ho ho ho and fa la la. Do nothing. Do everything. Go wild. Go grinch. Take the parts you like and embrace them with furious intensity. And ignore each and every part that brings you sadness. I give you that permission.

I hope you find a little bit of happiness in every corner of the room.

Do I like waiting for things? A casual study of my way of life would make it clear that no, no I do not. I self-published books 1-4 expressly because I did not want to wait for the world to ask for them. As a consequence, some may say that I rushed in half-cocked to the process and made a lot of mistakes in public. Those people are right.

What makes waiting even worse? Until I turn a book loose onto the unsuspecting public, it is only ‘real’ to me. There is no proof that I have done anything productive with my time. I know, I know, I don’t have to prove to anyone that I have actually been working, but try telling that to my insecurities.

So here’s the ironic situation I find myself in. I have, not one, but TWO unpublished books sitting on my metaphorical desk. The first draft of book 5 of the Spellbound Railway series was finished a few weeks ago (weeks? Sheesh. Time flew by.) And I have a 2nd draft, on the way to a 3rd and possible final draft of my super-secret detective thriller book.

If you’re wondering, those two books represent 2 years of work. Other than me, a total of about 5 folks have read the detective book. Not one other soul has laid eyes on book 5 yet. So much time, and fretting, and cussing has gone into these two novels that the outside world has yet to see.

I have never let a book sit un-released for a few months, much less a whole year. It’s unsettling. And now I have a second book needing exhaustive editing and revising. The to-do list is longer than it has ever been before. To tweak the pressure to get these blasted things out the door, there’s my self-imposed pressure/guilt about bringing home the bacon. Unpublished books don’t make money, honey.

But despite my natural inclination to slapdash my way to the end of a project, I am not going to hurry. I am going to act like a responsible adult doing business. Realistic timelines! Steady progress towards achievable goals! Proper nutrition! The detective book will get its next edit finished up in the next week or so. Then I will query a handful of publishers, to tell them that they need to publish this book. Maybe one of them will answer! Then it will be onto editing book 5.

 

Welp, that is that. After slogging through 10 months of various levels of productivity and distraction, I finished the first draft of book 5. And I feel…happy, I guess?

Completing a book is a strange event. It’s a lot like finishing a half-marathon. (It may be like finishing a full marathon as well, but I’ve never run one of those.) Near the end of a long run, the gas tank is empty. Your internal pep talks have become ineffectual. Everything chafes. The only thing that gets you to the finish line is stubborn determination. You force yourself to grind out the last hundred steps to get to the end.

And grind I did, to the tune of 110 000 words. That is a whole lot: in fact, it’s the longest thing I have ever written. Keep in mind, the thing hasn’t seen the merciless eye of the editing process, so the word count is going to change. But for now, the size of the book 5 word heap is 100 grand and change.

You may have noticed that I’ve referred to it by the rather uninspiring title ‘book 5’. That is because a real title hasn’t jumped up and bitten me on the nose yet. Actually, a title did present itself months ago, and I was excited to slap it on as a working title: “The End of All Things”. And then I googled it and found John Scalzi had already used it for one of his books. Dang it. (I still like the title and am tempted to use it, reader confusion be damned)

I should also mention it is the final book in the Spellbound Railway series. Not only did I finish a book, I wrapped up the whole series. You would think that I would have a tremendous sense of elation, accompanied by a wistful melancholy. It took me about 10 years to write all five books. Ten Years! A decade of work! I am getting old! Ah! Wait, that’s a different topic. Nevermind the oldness.

But even though I referred to the book writing process as a gruelling feat of endurance, this one wasn’t as exhausting as previous ones. I think my writing muscles have become stronger.  No amazed declaration of “I can’t believe I actually finished!” this time. I can believe it, because I’ve done it before, and I’ll keep doing it.

Wait a second….is this what being confident in your own skills feels like? Weird.