5/17/10

The "Finish Writing the Book" Experience

Let me tell you a little about my "finish writing the book" experience I'm having. I've been writing the closing chapters of Mythos for weeks now. Whereas I allowed my characters to drive much of the earlier part of the book, yours truly has directed events leading up to and through the climax. And it's an odd thing. I see how it ends more and more every day, and my fingers are tap-tap-tapping furiously on the keyboard to get the story there. The more I see, the more prolific the writing becomes. Yep - at the end, I have received "total consciousness", which is nice. Thanks for that riff, Bill Murray.

As the words find their way on screen, the most bizarre ideas come to mind - roads along which I might take my characters, avenues with all sorts of twists and turns, and certainly littered with potholes. As this happens, I envision my characters looking up at me as if I'm in the stratosphere. They dutifully go about whatever business I set before them, but every now and then I catch them shaking their heads. For every unplanned direction I take them, for every shiny new obstacle I place before them, they've got to deal with it, and I need to help them. And in every case, this extends the story. This is why it's taken longer to get to the honest-to-goodness final chapter.

The last ten chapters of Mythos are the "big resolve". All the activity leading up to these chapters was a whole lot of simmering and the occasional bubbling over of conflict. The last ten are the rolling boil, and the foamy water is slopping over the sides of the pot. I knew where I wanted to be ten chapters ago, and with every chapter I wrote, I discovered even more details I needed to cover in the remaining pages. It's been a serious blast and is the sum total reason why I write.
 
So now, I can finally look myself in the mirror and declare, I am writing the final chapter. Truly. Well, unless I decide to do the epilogue thing. But that's it. Absolutely. There is this one loose end that might prove troublesome, so maybe.... No. It's the end.

Oh, and when it's all done, I'll combe the final three chapters into one last Birth of a Novel post. *sigh* What ever shall I do with my time?

10 comments:

Annie McMahon said...

Last chapter? Are you sure?

Ralene said...

hehehe...

Way to go, Jay! I know you can wrap it up with style. Are you ready for the totally lost feeling once you type "The End"? lol...

Anonymous said...

Now, now, the question isn't how he'll feel when it's done--the question is: Will there be a sequel? Huh, Jay, huh? Well? Is there? Huh Huh Huh? *poke poke poke*

Karen Jones Gowen said...

Jay,

I popped over from Annie's blog, curious since I have a son named Jay, although I knew you weren't him, since he's a writer who doesn't write and his last name isn't Eckert. Anyway, congrats on finishing!! What a wonderful place to be!! And then you can go back and add in even more stuff that you think of later :)

KarenG

Ralene said...

And edit...then edit some more...and just when you think you're done...edit some more!

Jay said...

You guys are too funny. This story will definitely come to a close with the final chapter. I did not set out to write a series with Mythos. The revisions are going to be fairly substantial, I think, which is why I'm going to take 3-4 weeks off and do something else first!

Karen - Thanks for dropping by. Your Jay is a writer who doesn't write? I'm baffled!

Anonymous said...

haha!! That's awesome, Jay. It's an amazing feeling when you type, THE END and sit back with a happy sigh, and then grin for a whole week :)

What will you do with your time? Write another one, obviously!...lol...Have you got a working title for the next book yet? An idea? You must have thought about it?

Go Jay!

Anonymous said...

Congrats on reaching the closing chapters, good sir. More power to you for powering through to the end. I shall now draw inspiration from this post and stop procrastinating on my own writing....

Bravo!

Jay said...

Thanks, gents. Kurt - I have no idea. I thought I was going to spend some time beating Midian into something better, but I'm debating whether to just leave it alone, think of the next book, and then return to Mythos.

Anonymous said...

That's a hard one :S You can come back to Midian at any point really. If it's any help, I found writing a new one, Unknown Reality, a lot easier than I'm finding it to edit my TT series into shape. I have no choice though, it's a trilogy...lol...