67,833 words is all it took

it's not just that i finished a novel, it's that i actually finished something i started...

i'm awesome at starting projects i never finish. i'm not sure if it's because i lose interest half way through, or maybe it's that i don't ever commit to anything enough to need to see it through to the end, perhaps a combination of both, or even something else altogether. i don't know, but i know that something about finishing this feels like more than just finishing.

oh, and since i'm sure you're dying to know, i finished that never ending playlist with U2's in a little while yesterday morning, and this playlist kicks ass!

anyway...

i know it seems a little bit crazy for someone who has graduated from college and grad school to make a claim that i don't finish what i start, but those bigger things were, like, ends to the means they once were. the novel is something else. it's its own commitment, took my constantly growing voice as a writer, gave me a gauge to grade my craft, made me work harder, longer, and seek out greater detachment, so i'd be able to someday let it go. it has been its own journey. and it seems as if it's a bigger risk to finish the damn thing, than it would have been to have spent my whole life writing it.

damn, this play list is rocking my world tonight!

cuz it's going out into the world now. next week begins the road to the greatest numbers of rejections i'll get, well, till the ny times hires me and i start getting all the hate mail i've been sending to bill kristol and david brooks the past year. and it's scary to me to send a 6-year (probably seven even) labor of love out into the world where it could find nary a fan.

but i'm me, so i'm going to close my eyes and jump.

~k