As of this weekend, I have finished a book. On my own. As in it’s done and I don’t hate it.
This was one of those things I had started to suspect would never happen again until it did.
Bear with me while I speak purposefully obtusely: for two years in my professional life (both with writing and my day job), I’ve heard no a lot. A lot a lot. To the point where it had begun to feel like all the doors weren’t merely closed, but locked.
I have no evidence the doors will open now, but finishing a book feels like scoring a point back from what Thomas Carlyle calls the everlasting nay (everyone’s read Sartor Resartus, right?); it feels like I’ve finally moved back toward the everlasting yea:
Oh, thank thy Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need of them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. …This is the EVERLASTING YEA, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.
Romance is a genre that’s about the everlasting yea. And writing words, even when it feels small, is always optimistic, always hopeful. The world can use some positivity right now. We all need more yes.
PS I wrote the last 20K words of the book while listening to Julien Baker’s amazing album Sprained Ankle on repeat, specifically the track “Something.” If you like progressive folk/indie rock, give it a spin. The songs are sad, but lovely and insightful. I highly recommend it.
PPS Genevieve and I are going to send another newsletter on Wednesday that includes one of my all-time favorite deleted scenes. (Seriously, cutting it out of Earth Bound made me gnash my teeth.) If you aren’t on our mailing list, get on it!
PPPS Carina Press is running a 30% sale on all the books at their site, which includes The Easy Part series (my DC-set political romances). The deal is good through July 31; use the code RWA3016 when you check out. My Carina books rarely if ever go on sale, so if you’ve been waiting, get ’em now for less.
Emma Barry 
I’m so very glad to hear that you’re writing again and finished a book! I look forward to reading it. Watching your pretty scary political circus from Up North, I often think about Parker and Millie, Liam and Alyse, Michael and Lydia and what they’d make of the goings-on. It’d be fun to write them all into a dinner scene with too much wine flowing and have’em go at it.
P.S. *whispers* Can’t stand Carlyle. Here’s a better “yea”: http://www.cavafy.com/poems/content.asp?id=1&cat=1
Thank you! I’ve done a lot of writing over the last two years, both with Genevieve and on my own, but I haven’t been finishing things. My hard drive is littered with half-completed manuscripts, some of which are good and some of which are…not.
Oh, that is a good yea. I also like EM Forster in A Room With a View: “By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes–a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.”
Oh, I love the Forster! (*shame-faced* never read him … )
He’s one of my favorites! A Room With a View and Howard’s End are the best. You’d love them.
Good post! But, um, is that code meant to be RWA2016 at the end there?
I just checked the email from Carina, and the promo code is RWA3016. I guess they’re looking way, way ahead. ; )