This Is Best

I finished my novel last night.

For real.

Like, for real-for real.

It hasn't sunk in yet. I was just going along, happily double-underlining things off my To Edit list {because double underlines are just so much cooler than single underlines}...and then my entire list was double-underlined all the way through.

It is a rather helpless feeling, really, to come to the end of one's list. Because you are left with a great void in your life. What do I do now? My fingers are...still. My thoughts are...still. There is nothing left. I am finished.

Finshed. It's a huge word. And never have I used it alongside a novel I'm so very happy with. Stratagem I finished, but it wasn't exactly my magnum opus. It was the best it could be, the best I could make it. I was more than satisfied with it, but I don't think I'd ever say it made me particularly happy. My glasses are half-empty, and flaws tend to be highlighted in my eyes.

With Those Who Trespass {the new one}, the flaws are so few. Not extinct. Are they ever? But they are so few, few to the point of perfection. Yes, whatever I write next will be better. It always is. But this - this is best. And this makes me happy. I read it, and I'm proud of it.

It's a strange feeling. The first time I've felt proud of something I wrote, not because I wrote it, or because I finished it, or because I edited it - but because I like it. For me, my liking my own story is enough to make me proud. And right now, that's best.