Lili Saintcrow @lilithsaintcrow@raggedfeathers.com

I’ll be useless for a few days now, dazed and witless after reaching the finish. See you guys in a bit.

I’m going to go cry now. This zero draft fought to the last, but it also wanted to be born. It’s finally out of my head.

Yep. Gonna go sob.

And weighing in at a little over 60k words (and will grow like a weed in the revise), the zero of Book 2 of BLACK GOD’S HEART is…done.

I did it. It’s done.

It’s a Sunday, I have yet another pot of Earl Grey, and I think I’m going to finish this book today.

Eventually I will like this book again.

Eventually.

When the act of writing it is just a nasty memory.

Tomorrow is the coup de grâce. It’s no longer “will I ever fucking finish writing this book” but “I *will* finally be free of this thing that has possessed me for so long, just let me stab it again, and again.”

Or at least, significantly fresher than my weary corpse is at the moment. I’m still in Zeno’s Paradox of Finishing the Damn Book, but with a bonus of knowing I’ve stabbed it until it’s significantly bled out.

The crisis is written. Tomorrow I’ll write the falling action; the book may even be done by Monday.

But for tonight, I have to collapse. I hate leaving at this point but sticking the landing requires being fresh.

Also, I have Rocky Horror Picture Show’s “Rose Tint My World” playing at high volume inside my head, for whatever that’s worth.

Won’t finish this book tonight, but I will certainly kick it until it’s weakened.

*cracks knuckles*

Even if I don’t finish tonight, the good clean high of knowing I pulled off at least *one* good scene is a reward all its own.

And now for dinner. Ugh. I hate stopping to eat.

I just finished a scene this story has been building towards for two. whole. books.

And I think I knocked it out of the park. It FEELS right, as they sometimes do spilling from the typing fingers.

Two scenes added. True to Zeno’s Paradox form, I have six left to finish, but have to break for dinner. And yet…

“The fear of getting sick, dying, or losing a loved one has proved a major impetus for foregoing politeness.” https://www.elle.com/culture/a35854625/no-more-politeness-2021/

In other words, you know you’re getting closer to finishing, but each step only brings you halfway, ever and forever.

I hate this part.

Seven scenes from the end of this book. We’re now entering the event horizon of Zeno’s Ending Paradox, when for every scene you write to get to the end of the damn project you discover you need one more.

The book is *thisclose* to being finished and it took a screaming left turn on me.

I love it when a book does this but I also hate it when a book does this TO ME.

Eating three-quarters of a box of sugary cereal I was never allowed as a kid, drinking a huge pot of Earl Grey, then taking a nap.

Sometimes, adulthood flat-out ROCKS.

“You live with him. You see him literally all day, every day. You both sleep in my bed. Why are you sniffing his bum?” —Me, to my dogs, today in ‘things I never thought I’d say to another living being’…