Journey’s Ending

There are moments one hopes to always remember. Sometimes we snapshot but never quite accurately. For me I muddle second times for first ones. I have just written the last lines of my novel. I may have done this before and anticipate I will have to mould them again but these ones feel right.

I’ve been battling second drafting, fighting myself over past versus present tense, and multiple viewpoints. I’d started a pragmatic/commercial rewrite into the more cohesive past third person, but rereading my changes it felt like I was ripping the soul out of my story. So…so… stick to my guns. Realistically this book may just be for me; forty agents is the limit I’m setting. And I’m redeciding to write for myself. Blow the reader (present company excepted!), this is pre-editor, pre-agent, pre-other people’s eyes. This is honest. This is indulgence. And the worms of early drafts writhe around, especially the ending and my usual happy ambiguity. Tonight, when my brain has been caught completely in other places an ending has come out the end of my pen. Yes, pen. Long hand, not my novel normality. Is it any good? I don’t know, really not sure, but you know what, I really enjoyed writing it. 

It has been written with my friends. The eccentrics in the pub, working on a laptop-laden table, with drinks between us. Mostly silent, asking each other occasionally for forgotten words. Sometimes typing in time to the music, sometimes staring out the window, sometimes flowing, often frustrated. We joke with the bar staff they’ll get blue-plaqued for one of us one day. The Novelists Club. At nine we stop and more wine is bought. The quiet is replaced by lively chatter and we are joined by friends from the concurrent creative writing class where we forged our writerly relations. A proper unpretentious pub with a tartan carpet. Sitting in the bay window. Here I wrote the last lines of my novel. For the time being.