No. 48: DONE.
The Pain & Glory of Finishing a Novel
I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever finish YOUNG WORLD.
It reminded me of that movie Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s last film, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. The film began shooting in London one summer, and then Kubrick kept shooting and shooting and shooting, for more than 2 years, either because he didn’t know how to finish it or he couldn’t bear the thought of finishing it or he thought he might die if he did (which, indeed, turned out to be the case.)
I had all those same thoughts about YOUNG WORLD, my first original novel in 12 years, and only my second ever, after the first SCHOOL FOR GOOD & EVIL.
It wasn’t just the pressure that haunted me the past 2 years, to write something worthy of reading, but also the sheer ambition of the book, which is on the surface a political, sexy, globe-hopping thriller, but deep down is a twisty, often alarming trip into my subconscious.
A writer friend once told me: “What you think the book is about is never actually what the book is about. Only when you’re done do you see it.”
I see it now. And I see why I had all those fears that I might die if I finished.
* * * * *
The penultimate chapter was the true crucible. Most of the chapters in YOUNG WORLD are between 2000-2500 words. Short, sharp bursts of action and drama, in the vein of The Da Vinci Code or Hunger Games. But the penultimate chapter is 6500 words. More than 40 plot threads in the novel all converge.
It was the chapter I was terrified of writing. The week before I started, I had an awful acne attack and basically stopped eating. Every time I opened the document to start work, I’d end up tinkering with other chapters. Even now, thinking about starting that chapter with a blank page, knowing the sheer amount of work that awaited… my heart rate’s going up and my palms are sweating.
Maybe because there was no way to consciously control a chapter like that. It required utter, abject surrender — and for an absolute tyrannical control freak like myself, that’s a state I avoid at all costs.
So I made a decision.
Cancel all plans until it was done.
No seeing friends, no going to dinners or movies, no leaving the apartment, other than for tennis and the gym.
Something about that choice relaxed me.
I didn’t have to be part of the real world anymore. I could just give myself to the fictional one and let the chapter write itself in the way it wanted. No deadlines. No restrictions. My unconscious was in charge. I sucked in a deep breath and began.
It took 15 days.
I don’t remember any of them, other than the night my friend Alex came over to watch an episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and put up with the fact I was so lost in my other world, I never offered him food or water.
Otherwise, it was just writing and thinking and pacing and staring out the window and going down to get takeout in pajamas and calling my partner and telling him this chapter might kill me and him telling me that the real world was waiting for me when I was done.
And then it was.
I let out a scream when I landed on the last word (“Reborn”) and threw a pillow against the wall and went to sleep for 12 hours.
Only there was a problem.
I still had one last chapter to write.
* * * *
I call it the Afterglow chapter.
Where you’ve done the heavy, heavy lifting, and now can sprint to the end.
There’s one at the end of Book 3 of SGE, another at the end of Book 6, and the last story of Beasts & Beauty is basically one long afterglow.
The problem with these chapters, though, is you go into them relaxed and joyous and ready to spread your wings… only to realize you still have a lot of work to do. That last chapter doesn’t just tie up loose ends, but it has to find your philosophy, the deeper pulse of the novel, and unashamedly lay your veins bare. It needs to be the most emotional – and surprising – chapter in the book, must be, if the entire endeavor is to be successful, but you’re also faced with one giant, resounding obstacle…
You’re tired.
No way around it. Your body and soul are done. You have nothing left to give, right when you need the most.
This is when two things get you to the finish line.
Resilience.
Gentleness.
Let’s start with resilience, which isn’t some woo-woo, airy-fairy thing you summon, but rather built into the process from the beginning. It’s why workouts and fitness are so important to the system. If I can get in really good shape during the first 80% of writing a novel, then that baseline fitness will save me in the last 20%, when I’m not eating, sleeping, and am a psychosomatic ball of stress.
In this case, I was lucky to have great tennis partners (shoutout to Case and Theo from Wash U and SLU) and physical trainers in St. Louis and New York who know how to read my energy. They could see I was looking rougggghhh, didn’t have much to say other than grunted greetings, and spent the hours mostly lodged in my head. (Case: “You okay? You seem sad.” Me: “I’m just stressed.” Case: “It reads as sad.”) But still, I showed up and worked out my angst, until little by little, the mountain was climbed.
Gentleness came with a change of scenery.
I flew down to Miami on December 18th and started the last chapter of the book that same day. The deadline to turn in YOUNG WORLD was January 2nd. Which gave me 11 days. More than enough time to nail it. Except one problem… People.
Where the penultimate chapter let me lock myself away, my personal zen monastery, now there was no way to avoid the world. Family in town. Partner in town. Friends in town. Plus a beach, a hot tub, tennis courts, paradise right outside my door. How was I going to get the book done?
Ironically, it was because of all these distractions that I was able to finish.
The Afterglow chapter benefited from me going out with my family, then coming back to write, or going to the beach, then coming back to write, or going to see WICKED for the thousandth time, then coming back to write. Time, balance, ease to the process gave it a bigger, more serene perspective — the kind needed to find those deep feelings that would make the ending sing.
And then, all of a sudden… I had a book.
49 chapters.
119,000 words.
104 pieces of original art.
I turned in YOUNG WORLD on December 29th and then spent the next two days beachside with my friends Jenny and Morgan, surrounded by palm trees and ocean waves, marveling at how beautiful everything seemed to be.
* * * * *
Seventy-two hours later, I was in frigid St. Louis.
The morning of January 2nd, I started polishing the book, basically the last stage before copy-editing, where I read the novel as a whole, trim fat, check for consistency, sharpen motivations… It takes about 2 weeks and requires intense concentration, but also tends to be pretty fun. Maybe because it’s the first time I see the whole thing from a birds-eye view. Like the final dusting of a sculpture carved out of a rough hunk of stone.
That afternoon, I jaunted into Blues City Athletics, my Crossfit gym, feeling on top of the world. Book done, glowy Miami tan… I even posted a shirtless beach picture on Instagram, lost in the throes of an imperial Moment.
Short-lived, it turns out.
My trainer hadn’t arrived yet, which meant I still had a few minutes to warm up. So I went to the GHD machine, my usual routine, where I forward fold and decompress my spine.
Only today, something went wrong.
The machine was loose, the lever not secured like it usually was. When I put my feet into it and pitched forward to hang upside down, the panel under my shoes gave way. I toppled forward, plunged five feet, head first. Time slowed down. The only thought I remember: “I finished the book… If I die like this… at least it’s done.” Which was comforting. Comforting enough to let me fall maybe 10% more relaxed, so that when I landed on my head, I tilted my chin, curled my neck and bore the force there, before skidding onto the side of my face.
Everything went dark for a second.
I blinked into a fluorescent light, six pairs of eyes staring down at me.
Then came the pain.
The end result: severely jammed neck; jammed lower back; jammed pinky; giant bloody rubber burns on my cheek, forehead, nose; bloody tongue (apparently I bit it on the way down?).
A resounding start to the New Year.
I feel stupid about this, honestly. While everyone’s celebrating new beginnings, I’m home with ice under my butt, my neck locked, my face bashed up, looking like I got in a streetfight that I lost. Badly.
The only smile comes when I remember what I was thinking about while falling. When I thought maybe this was it and my world was about to go dark. And in that moment, the only source of comfort were the words I’d leave behind.
Words that will be in your hands soon enough…
Happy New Year!
Have you ever finished a project you thought you never would?
And if/when I heal from this mess, how should I celebrate?
Congratulations!
To answer your last question... just four words: 'Be Nice To Yourself.'
You really do deserve it.
Congratulations on finishing Young World ! I can't wait to read it! I never have finished a full novel length project. I have a lot of writing ideas but my brain always seems to be scattered even when I outline so they usually end around the thirty pages or sixty pages. I consume a lot of books and watch a lot of media but it doesn't always work in helping me get to professional level. I have several ideas though sometimes they're dark fantasy and other times it's a cozy fantasy