By Thursday night I knew I was within hours of finishing The Spartanette Project, but I also knew I wasn’t going to get those hours until Sunday. It was making me a little nervous, holding out until the last minute. After all, my goal was to be done by February 1. I was going to cut it pretty close!
This morning I was up at 8:30 so I could be at my desk by 9:30. (I have a mental block about sitting down to work before 9 AM on a Sunday.) At 9:15, I got started. I shut off my Blackberry and quit my mail application so I would have no distractions.
The first hour or so was fine! I just wrote five little stories that were just new funny things I’d wanted to include. When that was done, I was like, kind of done. I hadn’t finished the section on study abroad, but I have been struggling with that section, and I sort of knew that I could get away with calling it done without having finished that section.
Honestly, I was having a huge mental battle with that section. The tone of those essays is really different than the rest of the essays, and that bothered me. It was really sentimental because I was so in love with study abroad. I wanted to just cut it altogether but I couldn’t because it was so important to everything that happened over the next two years.
When I opened the section today, I just said, “Uggggggh,” several times. It was like being back at Mile 21 at the marathon, when I was cranky, over it, and facing a hill. Just like then, I realized today I had to stop thinking about it and just push through it. And so I did. I felt like it was never going to end…I was in Scotland…and then Paris…and then back to Scotland…just editing the old stuff and writing the new stuff and taking out all the super-sentimental stuff that gave me a toothache…I was starving but I knew if I stopped to eat it would be really hard to motivate myself to start again, so I just kept writing!
It was just like the last few miles of the marathon. I knew I was close, but goddamnit, when would I be done?!
And then, finally, finally, I finished! It was such a good feeling!!!!!
The first thing I did after saving it a million different place was EAT!!! I ate my pesto eggs and fruit so quickly I don’t feel like I even tasted it. Writing works up an appetite!
The book is definitely still a rough rough draft, but I have it to the point now where I feel ready to start working on my query letters and hunting for an agent. I have a long way to go before I’m just showing up at your local Barnes and Noble, but one huge part of this project is complete! I’m pretty mentally worn out, but I feel like I still have so much to do today and this week; I am leaving for Chicago on Thursday night and have a ton of things I need to get done before I go!
So it’s back to work for me! Have a great Sunday night!!
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