Yesterday morning at this time my backside was here. I was revising, rewriting, reworking -you name it- my second novel, “Back outta the World”. This morning, I am using that very same backside to sit in the same chair and use the same keyboard. However that exact backside now proudly supports a novelist. Since you can’t ask my backside what all of this means, I will explain.
It means that “Back outta the World” feels finished to me, it’s creator. It is not at all the same type of feeling that came to me when I “finished” it the first time. That scene is brilliantly recounted in my first novel, Tripio.
Since I am posting about the here and now all I can say is that it feels great. I have achieved something that can not be taken away. That is the one statement that can apply to completing both Tripio and now Back outta the World. In fact the lyrics to the classic song, “They can’t take that away from me” are now running through my mind. For the record, ha ha, I love Fred Astaire’s version.
Where was I? Oh yes, on my backside. Sorry – can’t you tell I am in a good mood? Which brings me to the actual topic today: I am now a novelist. I have written two novels. No matter that I started BotW around 25 years ago. No matter that I finished it several times before. Not to worry that I started and finished, had edited and published Tripio in the meantime. The completing of Back outta the World cannot be diminished. Plus the two novels are creatively connected.
Today I want to share with you fellow creators out there this: it is worth to do all the work one must do to finish your novel, poem, story or whatever your writing may be called. It can’t be beat. I spent all yesterday in quiet, personal celebration. That is part of it. I have learned that no one else cares all that much what a writer’s emotional experience is or what was the cost was in time, effort and even money. No one else cares, nor should they, about what left undone while we labored on our creations. Just as well to keep those things between me and my backside. Celebrate and honor that moment when you have finished your personal journey with your novel. That moment is yours to keep forever. Yes, it is true that no else will really want to hear what it took to get your novel done. Then again you get have your own quiet, personal celebration when it is done at last. It is equally true that they can’t take that away.
“May I help who’s next?”