DRAFT ACCOMPLISHED!!

Hey everybody,

Okay, I did it.I finally finished the first draft of Sally & Simon. At 4:15pm on Saturday 3rd April 2010 after 4 long years of plotting, planning and writing it is done. It would have been more poetic to get it wrapped up yesterday when the deadline was actually planned or even on the 1st of April, because no one would have believed it (ha, ha, you wrote a 181.000 word/600 page novel...good joke), but the universe dictates its own rules. And as always, I say something one moment and fate pulls a 180 on me and proves me wrong. I actually thought on Friday the book wouldn't be done for another few days, especially because I never get an opportunity to write in the weekend, but whatta ya know? I found the time and the book is done.

Yesterday evening I just couldn't sleep. Normally I read a novel, either epic fantasy or a young adult novel, but I couldn't do something so passive. The writer's fever that held me in its grip for the last week, didn't abide and I found myself with the need to do something active. So I picked up my notebook, crawled in bed and typed away. I'll never get past 100 words, I thought, but before I knew it it was 1a.m. and I had finished chapter 29 (or as I like to call it: the Hollywood ending, why? - spoiler alert - because I feel that every book should have an ending any reader can be content with as opposed to the complete turnaround that happens in chapter 30 that the reader should only read at their own risk of being frustrated with a cliffhanger - end spoiler alert -)

The today I woke up, played with my 4 year old son Alex while Nancy went to hot yoga, ate breakfast somewhere in between and watched Disney's Nemo. We had planned to all go to the shopping center in the heart of Bangkok, but red shirt protesters had threatened such vandalism to shop owners that they felt it necessary to close for today. So we returned home, ate lunch and took a dip in the pool. Other townhouse families joined us and we swam all afternoon. There was so much fun for Alex and Nancy that I thought - hm, maybe I can whip out the notebook and write that final chapter on our terrace. And that's what I did. With Danny Elfman's soundtrack to Alice in Wonderland I typed for under an hour and got to put 'THE END' at the bottom.

Whew. So what's in store next? First I rest a couple of days. I might update the blog on a ad hoc base and I will ask fellow writer and contributor to book and blog, Nancy to maybe fill in while I'm gone to Malaysia. And when I get back I'll start the process of redrafting it. Maybe. Let's see what the universe has in store for me, as I park this car at a pit stop, let the Muses out for bathroom breaks and refreshments and check in to a motel room for the night.