Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

And here we all are, rushing toward a day that passes all too quickly, months of anticipation dissipating in a confetti of bright shards, leaving us bloated and queasy.

I love Christmas, by the way, though it was an eternal disappointment to the child I was, never receiving the computer, any kind of computer, that I craved. Still, I adore the lights, the tinsel, the ornaments that become characters in stories of the evergreen kingdom, friends and rivals, new visitors and old favorites.

My sister and I used to play in the trees of our youth, toadstool fairies and sparkingly antlered deer weaving magic in a land where a man made of pipe-cleaners always clung to the end of a branch, terrified but never falling. I still remember his crudely distorted claymation face. It’s a wonder I lean toward the grim in stories isn’t it? He’s lost now, and that saddens me, because I wonder about his story, in green and red felt, and how he came to our yearly pine scented playground. How melancholy to never know.

So I’ve had a great week! How was yours? I have progressed to 88.2% of my read-through/final editing pass. No graphic representation. Lots of little changes made, and with them the satisfaction of feeling the story working, its muscles flexing around newly connected sinew and bone (a metaphor from earlier blogs, just roll with it). I’m getting hits of pleasure as I finish each chapter. I hope it’s not premature self-congratulation. If it is, (and it probably is, damn it), what the hell, the pleasure is real. I’ve even cackled with glee a couple of times. That does worry me.

But all this writerly merriment has brought me to it, the moment. The ending I need to refashion, to improve and incorporate new scenes into, fix the rushed creation I belted out to hit my summer deadline an age ago.

I know how it’s going to go, I’ve outlined it in fragments, the pieces I want to touch on, the ways it will make better sense for the characters and for the story, and to hint at wider interconnected events in the world that will power the epic these three separate stories have been building toward while each remaining entirely their own thing.

Still, it’s a challenge, crafting new sections that blend seamlessly into what already exists, that build on and resolve what I have built the narrative and character arcs toward. If it were just a puzzle to put together, and novel writing is very much an exercising in building and then assembling a puzzle of your own design, it wouldn’t be that bad, but I’ve got to make the beats hit emotionally, so that on re-reading I get to cackle once again, and know I’ve at least done a good job of satisfying my own expectations.

And that, my friends, can be a little daunting. I plan to be cavalier and rush out a version that hits everything my subconscious demands, then go back and look at notes to see if any specifics were missed. A little pantsing first, then verification and plotting after, because the feel to me is most important here, and I want to be guided first by that: the clockmaker in me can be made to be satisfied if a wheel or cog I wanted is missing, but the arms move in good time. Better that than a perfect mechanism that lacks engagement, and so stalls when most it needs to move onward.

I’m playing with metaphors again today. Feeling a little whimsical, pleased with the progress, ready to make light of the next challenge. I shall start the ending before Christmas arrives, but I doubt I’ll finish it, and that’s okay. I get this done properly, feel a rush of satisfaction, and the book goes out to proof, and I put it out of my mind a while, so I can return and read it yet again with a faintly fresh eye, and hope to be pleased at what I find.

Have a wonderful week, my friends. If you celebrate next Monday, savor the day, and don’t get too bloated!