Final sprint

I’m about to finish my novel. Another day or two of edits on the final chapter, and my 90 000-word literary baby will be done.

It doesn’t quite feel real. I’ve been working on this book since at least 2011, back when I was teaching high school full-time, raising three little kids. I used to wake up at 5:45 every morning, to write before work. Now writing is my day job and my kids are all bigger than me! Time has certainly passed, and the Covid pandemic has made everything harder, but still I find myself here, at the finish line, at last.

Once I press “save” on that final draft, there are a few more steps before I can fully relax. I’ve written this book in Scrivener, so I’ll need to paste the whole document into Word — this entails another reread to make sure the formatting doesn’t go wonky. After that, I’ll take a couple of days to write the dreaded synopsis: a 1-2 page summary of the novel, showing the full story arcs and all key details. I’ve found lots of online guides and examples for writing synopses, so hopefully this won’t be as difficult as I anticipate.

Finally, by Friday, Oct. 8th at the very latest, I’ll send my manuscript and synopsis to a literary agent. And that will be it! Hard as it is for me to believe, I’ve actually written a book.