The end, and now, the beginning

I finished two major undertakings today. I'm not saying there's any connection. Except that they're done (one more so than the others).

First off, I finished Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series. While I'm still not of a mind that it's well-written, and suffers from having segments published years before the next segment was even put on paper, it does end exactly as it should. It's not everyone's favorite ending, but as he says, it's the right ending. That's what happens. He spends a fair amount of time in the book(s) talking about the writer as conduit, and that's true in a very large way. You can try and force the story out you think you want to tell, but in the end the story tells itself and you know when there's a forced part, like a bump on a very smoothly laid out duvet.

Second off, I finished the latest (and, I think, agent-ready) draft of my book. When I last went through it there was one major and one minor bump in the duvet, and in this version they're both gone. This book has been on my mind and coming from my hands on and off almost as long as King's "Tower" series. With this version, I think we have a winner. What was fun was coming to the end of the last version, which I had dated — and today was 364 days since the last version was finished. Had I not been distracted by dating issues last year, I sense it would not have taken me nearly a year to come up with the latest draft. I'm happy with it. Satisfied. The ending is as it is supposed to be. The duvet is pretty darned flat.

Now, the really hard part: Figuring out my hook for the query letter. And finding that agent.

Starting tomorrow.

As King would say, ka is a wheel.

2 Comments

  1. R.G. Ryan on 1/16/07 at 1:42 pm

    Congrats on finishing the book.

    I love the scene in, “As Good As It Gets,” when Jack Nicholson’s character takes his hands off the computer keyboard, leans back in his chair and beams, “Done!”

    I’ve since adopted it as my own pronouncement upon finishing a novel.

    Hopefully I will get to pronounce it over my work in progress very soon.:-)



  2. Armchair News on 1/16/07 at 3:16 pm

    Here here!

    (Or should that be hear hear? I never know….)