The End of the Beginning

By Ava Cuvay
Winner Notification: Molly Daniels is my winner from last week’s Word Wrangler giveaways! Molly, please pm me with your mailing address so I can get your copy of “The Lake House” Anthology and your mer-pug socks to you!
 
A few weeks ago, I attended my local chapter’s fall retreat, and enjoyed a momentous moment: I typed “The End” on my Blood King manuscript! I ran through the building, shouting it to the world, struck a few triumphant poses, fist pumped... Then returned to my computer and hung my head in gloom.

While coming to the end of a story is huge, and worthy of celebration, “The End” is by no means the end. “The End” is just the end of one aspect of crafting a worthy story. For a pantser like me, it really means "The End" of the beginning, which is to write the darn story. “The End” means the next phases of editing, critique partners, beta readers, hair-pulling begin. It reminds me of the scene in the Brendan Frasier version of “The Mummy,” when the defeated and dying Egyptian mummy Imhotep steps backward into the black, inky pool of souls and declares “Death is only the beginning.”

So it is with “The End.”

I have admittedly struggled with this particular story, and even upon reaching “The End,” I know I have so much work still to accomplish. More than simply tightening up the writing, reducing my passive sentence structures, replacing filler words with vibrant descriptors, and even wrangling any dangling participles. I have serious plotting, story, and character issues to address. So my celebration of “The End” was short-lived because I knew the bulk of my work still lay ahead of me.

I have taken a week (or four) off, and will take more off as the holiday festivities gear up. But I’m ready to tackle this. The mulling of thoughts in my brain is energizing my fingers, and when I have big chunks of time after Christmas, I’ll be ready to dive into my edits and fix what I know is broken.

So “The End” is only the beginning of bringing a book to life. And I’m ready for the next leg of this journey!

Comments

  1. You're absolutely right! Good luck on your next time through.

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    1. Thanks! I’m going to have to make several trips. Lol! ;-)

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  2. I know how you feel. I've been editing my three-book series for what seems like forever. But this I know about editing: it make the book better. So I try to embrace it, even though it's a tremendous amount of work. You can do this, Ava!

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    1. Thanks Jana! I’m looking forward to it right now... just need the time! Lol!

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