Not registering on the suckometer

Today's no ordinary Monday. Not only is it the first Monday of 2010 (I really like the symmetry in this year's number for some reason. It feels right...) but it's also the Day After I Finished Writing a Novel.
Why is this a big deal after all the novels I've written? Well, between you, me, and the internet (gate posts are sooo last century) it's the first time I've finished a novel in 2 years. Yep, 2 years ago I finished Trouble Under Venus and it's been something of a dry spell ever since. So yeah, getting to The End was a pretty big deal for me (even though I don't, in fact, type "the end" at the end of my stories. Pretty much, I think readers can figure out it's the end when there's no more story left).
Furthermore, I no longer experience that pang of sadness at the end of a story, for fearing I'll miss those characters terribly. Because you know what I've learned? If I contract that book, I will be seeing lots and lots of those characters in the next months. And afterward, I'll be doing interviews for them and explaining how their story came to me and.... nope, I won't really be missing them.

Now I get to The Reason I Let Stories Cook Before Sending Them to My Editor:

There I slept, pleased as punch with myself, when en el noche media I awoke to the realization that I'd left a pretty big loose end. Oops. Of course, I'd never saddle my editor with all the silly mistakes I make during composition either, and I've got a couple of rather heated argument scenes (and the Big love scene) which need more stage direction and sensory details. So there's still some work involved before I get down to the actual work of doing edits with someone else involved. Still, I am done writing it.

So happy I'm off work for another day...

Happy Monday!

Autumn Piper
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