I’ve Flipped All the Pages

Nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like sitting alone in a booth at Panera, willing your red pen to stay with you for another twenty pages before it runs out of ink.

No, really. There’s actually nothing that could have made this day better than reaching this benchmark. Earlier today, during my pre-work work session, I finally flipped the final page in my manuscript. What does that mean? I’m done right?

No.

There are a few more steps I need to go through before I can actually call this puppy a solid draft. I may have accidentally vindictively deleted the last three chapters in the book about a week ago, when I realized they weren’t as good as I’d hoped. So re-writing the ending is a major priority for me.

In addition to that, I have to now take these inked-in edits and input them on my computer. I’m kind of hoping I can get through that step of the process Wednesday night and Thursday morning during my pre-work session (I have a romantic Board of Education meeting tonight, and afterward I’m planning on meeting some of my girlfriends out for a drink at Bar Taco in Stamford).

I’ve written three drafts of my query letter now, and my editors (read: ExBoyf and SMB) finally seem pleased with the version I’m ready to send. So there’s still a very real chance that I could get these packets sent out by the weekend, like I’d originally hoped.

In the mean time, I think I’ll smile for a while!