Okay. It’s Finished.

The first draft of The Fifth Circle is now complete at 81,319 words. As mentioned in a previous blog, this is my first attempt at non-fantasy and quite possibly my last. The only thing I like about this book is the fact that it’s finished. Really. Maybe I’ll change my mind after edits, after I’ve given myself a chance to put some distance between me and the book which has consummed me over the past several days.

Over the past eighteen days, I’ve written over 40,000 words and I feel as if I just completed my own personal NaNoWriMo. For the past three weeks, I’ve barely tweeted, blogged, returned emails, tormented people on authonomy, or cleaned my house. After finishing the first draft last night, I feel like a new person.

Today I ran errands, cleaned the house, made a casserole…all the things I’ve tried to avoid doing while I pushed myself to finish The Fifth Circle.

With a great sense of relief and anticipation, I’m going back to writing fantasy. I can’t wait to dive back into an imaginary world where imaginary people face imaginary problems…a world of magic. Or, maybe I’ll take a break from writing and just be a reader for a while.

The new book deserves some sort of tribute, and since I can’t think of anything nice to say, here is a lovely quote from Dante’s The Divine Comedy, The Inferno, Canto VII…

	Said the good Master: Son, thou now beholdest
	The souls of those whom anger overcame;
	And likewise I would nave thee know for certain

	Beneath the water people are who sigh
	And make this water bubble at the surface,
	As the eye tells thee wheresoe’er it turns.

	Fixed in the mire they say,’We sullen were
	In the sweet air, which by the sun is gladdened,
	Bearing within ourselves the sluggish reek;

	Now we are sullen in this sable mire.’
	This hymn do they keep gurgling in their throats,
	For with unbroken words they cannot say it.