The Final Round

At 2:30 in the afternoon, I have ten pages left, the last chapter, to read over for the almost-final round of editing. I'm excited, nervous, and overall feeling strange about it.

I'm excited because I truly love the story. It's dark and exciting. The setting is an endless forest of massive trees. Anything is possible. I love how the main character, a cursed teen who grows into a man, struggles against mounting negative thoughts and deepening hopelessness until the climax of the story. BAM! He's freed from his curse and able to begin the process of claiming his place in the forest.

I'm nervous because I have a hard time seeing the story. I started writing it over five years ago. During one of those years, I completely rewrote the story, cutting chapters and adding more. The story grew by 30,000 words with that deep rewrite. Now that I have gone through another round of reading and editing it in its entirety, it's grown by about 500 words. I think it needed those 500 words. I like it even more now, though I don't know the next time I plan read it from beginning to end again.

Hopefully, the people I have beta reading (my mom and a trusted friend) will agree that it's better than it's ever been. The second beta reader has never read the story before. My first beta reader and I have read the story so many times that we can't look at it straight. Instead of a story, we see the lines and word choice. Like the main character, we can't see the forest for the trees... because we are in their shadows. I put the trees down and she suggested moving them a little to the left. An outside view is much needed.

So, where does the strange feeling come from? I guess it's like finishing a series you fell in love with. What do you do now? Now that you have free time again, what comes next? Sure, you could start the other series, but your brain needs a break. It's in a certain mode, coded for that series you just spent hours and hours and hours nit-picking. Switching to something new is never easy.

That's why instead of going to read and edit my next next story to work on the endless editing for that one, I'm watching a stream of the new Zelda game. I'm going outside with my dogs and trimming trees (I rarely do yardwork). Afterwards, I'll wash the outside off my skin and stare at my computer.

Because once the mound of seemingly endless writing, editing, proofreading, and rereading are done, I'm left with nothing else I can do with it.

So, what do I do now?

I play Stardew Valley for a couple hours, running my year 8 farm, and go to bed early. The first physical copy of my next story is put away with my books. The only chance it has of being opened again is for promotional purposes (@darbythefish). I've already started making videos with it. Having a physical copy of the story I've worked so hard on helps my brain switch gears and digest it.

As summer begins, I'm feeling hopeful for fall. Once the leaves begin to drop, I might trick my brain into giving it another comb-over. But I don't want to force myself to read it a hundred more times. It's good, I love it, and I have done everything I know to do with it. I've even waited, allowing age, time, and practice to improve my craft, and then rewrote the entire thing. I've read it aloud with my beta reader. I've read a physical copy after that.

I wish I could read it for the first time again. This story is one that I put a lot of myself into, and one that I think people will feel in their bones.

But until I get feedback from the readers on any mistakes, I guess I'll be on my farm in Stardew Valley, picking melons and selling pale ales.