Melinda Morley

So, on Friday I typed the last sentence to my book. (again.) I have written almost the entire last 1/3 of the book. It’s less romantic and sappy. (How I LOVED my sappy and VERY romantic scenes.) But in the end, they were written for me and not for the story. Now the story feels and reads truer to itself. I still have more revisions to do, but I’ve passed through the major ones, and now I’m onto lighter fixes. (I’m almost finished!)

I can’t really describe the joy I get from writing. I know a lot of writers make it seem like you have to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to bring a book forth into the world. Yeah? I’m not one of those.

Don’t get me wrong, writing is hard, hard work and on some days it feels like the hardest thing I ever done. But, writing a last sentence to a very, very hard revision is a taste of heaven itself. Almost every day that I write I feel an incredible joy.

I love to write.

So, I printed out my story. All 80,000 words. Fear of losing my draft is still fresh on my mind since The Great Crash of 2009 when I lost over a month’s worth of revisions. My book was never the same after that. But, now I can finally say: it’s better. But, I implore you to go and back up right now, so that you don’t ever have to experience that kind of devastation. Seriously.

So, as I was saying, I printed out my book and handed the four inch pile of paper over to Sassy. My very eager teenage daughter.

And I waited while my book was read from start to finish by someone else for the VERY FIRST TIME.

And she loved it! And she gushed about it. She couldn’t put it down. And when it ended she sighed contentedly. And we talked excitedly about my characters and all the things that happened in the story that she never expected. She reacted just the way that I had hoped and even more.

And she said: I can’t believe you wrote it. It doesn’t even seem like you. It’s so creative I would have never thought of that stuff.
Sweet! That means that as a writer, I’m transparent! She’s seeing the characters and the story! Yay!

And now if no one else loves it and it never sees the light of day. It was enough to write that story for her.

But, not to worry! I’m happily pursuing publication for it. I really, really, really, (did I mention really?) want that book on my shelf. And I want to hand it to you in hard cover and say, “Here it is: Enjoy!”