Damn, this is good.

I try very hard to be the kind of person who's not considered self-absorbed.  I know I fail...a lot...but the effort is there, anyway.  That said, I have to admit that there's a strange self-absorbed pleasurable giddiness that comes from reading over a work of fiction that wasn't written as a result of any teacher's command, when you can read over text that you breathed life into yourself and say directly to the author, "Damn, this is good." 

Damn well oughtta be good.  I started writing the book sometime back in February; February 16 was the date I posted in my guild's World of Warcraft forum that I would be taking "a little time off" to write this thing.  March 20 was the date I posted to this blog that I was done...it was in a post titled "Finis" that, I admit, reads as though I was a bit drunk.  I really had no idea at the time how much work still stretched out before me.  I revised it once, and then let it rest as I wrote what is now book two (a.k.a. Return of the Gods: Ascension) and let several friends read over it.  I could tell then based on the relatively few critiques I received (it's tough, I admit, to tell your friend that his stuff stinks) and what was written in the ones I did get, that it wasn't up to snuff.  So I went at revising it again, removing wholesale sections, shifting stuff around, and wordsmithing in general. 

Now, nearly six months after I started, it's really getting there, and that makes me indescribably happy.  Heide is still doing a final read-through, and she's catching some great stuff, asking some important why questions.  As I'd added and removed and moved words, I'd forgotten a couple of details about when certain characters learned certain stuff, and so I've got a couple instances in the book where people are commenting on things they can't know yet.  Ah, well...it's all fixable, and she's doing a great job catching it.  We're in the last couple of days, in fact...she has a few dozen pages left to read, to be revised after, and then I'm ready to package it up like a manuscript and either send it to an editor or send queries to agents.  In either case, I feel like I've accomplished something significant. 

I've written a novel.  I hope I've written a publishable novel. 

That's probably enough blustery stuff for one post, so with that I'll say...hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day Holiday, if you're in the U.S., and if not, hope you still have a happy and safe 4th of July.