DONE!

The first draft of Gart's Road was officially completed early yesterday morning! Sunday night, I finally managed to finish off the longest chapter I've ever written. There was a lot going on in that chapter! Anyway, I managed to get on a roll that evening and rather suddenly realized that it was done. It wasn't quite how I had originally envisioned it, but it absolutely felt right. I'd have liked to have finished the very last chapter that night, but alas, I had a bit of a headache and had reached my limit. I packed it in and headed for bed.

The next morning, I went through my usual routine, got my son ready for school and kicked him out of the car on time, hustled to my school, and booted up my laptop. An hour later, I had finished the final chapter. Done.

It was an odd feeling. I've been working on this book for 14 months solid, and every spare moment I had was spent on it. Even though there is a lot of work to do to get it finalized for publication (proofreading, editing, book cover, etc.), it still feels like a loss of some kind. Where there once was a lot of writing, squeezing in a few lines here and there in odd moments, blocking off a few precious hours to dive into the story, now there's just a hole. I'm both elated to have gotten it done and a tiny bit sad that I won't be working on it anymore.

On the bright side, there is still book 3 coming up. There are some other book projects I have in mind as well. I figure I'll be back in my writing mode again soon enough. I admit it...I'm pretty happy when I'm there.

The editing will likely take a couple of weeks, and the biggest variable really is the cover art. I'm hoping to receive word from my fabulous artist in the next day or so to let me know how long it'll take. I'll keep you posted.

By the way, if you've ever thought that you wanted to write a book, you really should go get started. Seriously. It's fun stuff.