Nearly...

Good morning.

The power of adrenaline has once again seen me awake at an early hour. Well, that and a touch of excitement.

At about midnight last night I hit the 60,000 words mark in 'the book'. That in itself is a massive achievement for me. Huge. Monumental.

I am celebrating every 10,000 words with a small dance and the magic 60,000 was the turn of Dolly Parton's good old 9-5.  However be warned, if I am twerking at midnight to dear old Dolly at 60,000 words, what on earth will I be like at 70,000, or even 80,000?

Don't get me wrong, I still have no true idea of whether or not what I have written is good enough to be unleashed onto the public (gulp), exposing myself to serious criticism and potentially leaving me in a sobbing mess.

However, at the moment it is still all mine. It is still my own personal dream. All of these verbs, adjectives, nouns etc are things that I have told my fingers to write and it is quite personal. I suspect that every writer feels that.

Of course I want people to enjoy it, that is essentially the ultimate goal. Nevertheless before that I am striving to achieve something that I have wanted to do since I was young.

I can honestly say I have never written as much as I have now, and whilst I know that even at 80,000 words it will still require shining to make it into an A+ book, I am really pleased with what I have done so far.

Because you know what? As a good friend told me this week, writing a book is a bastard; and he is right.  I never truly appreciated how much goes into a book, content, rewrites, getting feedback from others saying that your baby is not as good as you thought it was; deleting whole paragraphs or even chapters that are not good enough or are irrelevant, meaning that the 2,000 words you just spent three hours writing are meaningless.

I have changed my ending three times already. This on top of normal life is exhausting.

However no matter what happens, I can say I did it.

Well, I can't say that yet, but I am hopeful. I can see light at the end of the tunnel, because even though I still have several thousand words to go, I can see that my little dream is coming forward and I can see the completion of it through a hazy outline in the fog.

That is far closer than I have ever been before. I don't think I could have come this far without the understanding and patience of friends who have been encouraging in every way, and there are those (you know who you are) who have been there at the end of an email when I have fallen into a blob on the keyboard having a diva fit blubbering, "I can't do it."

They have taken time out of their own busy schedules to pick me up, slap me with a wet fish and restart the engine again; from advice about editing to choosing a colour to highlight rewrites; from reading the first chapter several times to making suggestions about the names in the book. They have also, just simply, given me the permission to have a night off too.

It is just around the corner. In my minds eye I can see the front cover of the book poking its shy head around a wall teasing me, shaking its newly typed pages at me in some sort of shimmy, knowing that I am nearly within reach of my dream.

Nearly...it only took 40 years...