Let’s see. I’ve done this, hmm, at least 6, or perhaps 8, times by now. (Depending on how you count Demonhead…) But finishing a novel is a darned peculiar moment.
You’d think it would be gleefully exciting, and relieving, and all that. And it is! Except it also isn’t. There’s a deep unreality to the whole process, as your brain adjusts to letting go of the thing that has possessed it for months (at least months…), and tries to figure out what to do next. What to do with all this energy and focus and drive. Yet it’s also so exhausted, and spent, and sick of the damn thing.
All that.
The first semester of my freshman year at college, I worked so hard, and I was also so completely overwhelmed by the freedom, and the excitement, and the life changes, and all that. Seventeen years old, and I’d gone from a rural high school to a huge university of 30,000 students in a big city. But, I was a good student, and reasonably responsible, so I studied for finals, wrote my papers, etc. I always tested fast–I was almost always the first one done with an exam. Even now–I either know the answer or I don’t.
So my last final of the semester was one of those horrid 8-11 a.m. ones. I was done in about forty-five minutes, handed it in, got the heck out of there. And there I was, walking around campus in mid-December at the ungodly hour of 8:45 a.m. Anyone who was awake then was taking a final. Anyone who was done with finals had left for home. I kept saying aloud to myself, “I’m done.” Trying to feel it. Trying to be happy, or something. But it was as though I didn’t even know what that meant.
Finishing a novel is like that. “I’m done.” Because, I’m not, of course. It’s full of brackets and questions and loose ends and plot messes and all that. Even though I have a co-author, that doesn’t make it any more done: if anything, he’s going to find twelve thousand more things that need figuring out.
But…it’s in his hands now. At least for now. And, like that very first semester (of so many more to go), I’m done.
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Don’t think I’m idle, though. Hahahahaha. First I did the usual post-novel Desk Retrenchment, where I completely reorganized all the piles here, throwing away, filing, dealing with everything I’d ignored during the months of writing. I picked up the collab Jay and I had been writing, that I’d pushed completely aside almost a month ago, and wrote 500 words. I went to see a bunch of open houses with the President of Glyptotronics. I became friendly with the iTunes–REAL friendly (my credit card is probably still on fire). I found and re-created my to-do list. Plus the more ordinary weekend chores–laundry, vacuuming, other removal-of-filth tasks. Got the car washed. Bought artichokes. Etc etc.
Manic, me? Nah. Just post-novel.