IT'S FINISHED!

Well, it's as finished as much as I can finish it on my own. I know that if it does get picked by an agent, they're going to want me to change a few things, and if it gets picked by a publisher, they'll want to change some things. 

So, when I say it's finsihed, I think I mean as much as I can do on my own, it is finished. 

I feel as if I've just walked up an enormous hill and I can finally stop and take in the view. 

My husband has been incredibly supportive while I've been writing and now I have time to pause, I'm feeling so completely grateful. 

I have printed out The Book, double sided and comb bound it so it feels like a real book. It's too big, and floppy, and sometimes the combs pop out but it's as real as I have at the moment. 

It feels so surreal to say that it's finished. I started writing this book in the summer of 2017. Three years feels like such a long time. The number of characters I have add, cut and repurposed seems incredible. One of my characters has changed his name so often that I have to really think about what his name is now. (It's Yeren, he's a Yeti.) 

Yeren is actually the character that's changed the most. First he was a bar tender in a pub, then a coffee shop owner, then a tourist guide and now he's settled in his role as chief engineer. His personality and accent have both changed over time too, and his prominence in the book. He was a side character who chipped in with observations and information, and now he's a mentor. 

It's funny to think back on the characters and their characterisations at the start of writing the book, when I started writing, before I learnt about how to write. 

I think the breakthrough with this book was learning about the Midpoint. None of my books had a midpoint but they certainly had a saggy middle where not much happened except rambling about the place. Now, I've built up to the middle, had a dramatic incident, and it all changes then until the climax. 

Now I can only hope that the book is picked up by #PitchWars, and if not, that it's good enough for the query trenches. Fingers crossed!