Moving Close to the End

Right now I’m close finishing When the Music Stops, book two in my ballet trilogy. It’s funny; the closer I get to finishing the more questions I find I need to resolve.  I question my tension and my problems strewn across their lives. Since my characters become as real as my friends, I know their strengths and weaknesses, their hot buttons and their fears. Often I become overprotective of their “lives”, unwilling to let harm approach them. I always hope I have provided the promise of a good story but fear I may have fallen short. It’s a writer’s curse.

Soon I’ll move onto friendly editing suggestions. My fellow writers gift me with fresh perspectives, noting voids, overworked pages and redundancies as well as near-magical moments. They encourage me to let my characters “get dirty”; to experience problems and work their way out without my interference, all with the goal of helping improve my manuscript. They find the funny/quirky/odd-ball/head-shaking errors and make the kind of suggestions that match the V-8, head-banging commercials. I get dizzy from absorbing it all, but  feel grateful that they’ll take the time to help me be a better writer.

Following that, it’s on to the editor and facing the firing squad of errors and questions needed to be remedied. Next the book slips over to the printer and all hope of changes are released like doves that I hope can fly high and roost in sunshine. Writing’s a crazy roller coaster of emotions and actions. If you write you feel the thrill; if you read, we writers hope you are transported on an adventure you’ll enjoy in the present and remember into your future.