Done

Yes, you’ve read that correctly. The book is finished. Completed. Written. Polished off. Spellchecked and formatted. Crossed and dotted.
Like I said, it’s “done”.
And this morning I sent it to my editor at Macmillan New Writing.

It’s difficult to describe my feelings right now. On the one hand I’m glad to have finished it – sometimes you can spend too much time writing one book until it outstays its welcome.
Over the last two weeks I’ve been suffering “Tetris Syndrome” and instead of regularly dreaming brightly coloured blocks falling, I’ve been regularly dreaming my characters and scenes from the book, causing many sleepless nights. The story has dominated my life in a way I didn’t think possible, and I’ve thanked myself lucky many times that I have understanding friends, family and a wife who believes in what I do.

But on the other hand, I will miss writing the adventures of the monks of Saint Sallian. These characters have been “companions” of mine for over 18 months now (longer if you include the later drafts of The Secret War), and those kind of goodbyes are never easy. If there’s any comfort, it’s the knowledge that this “goodbye” is not a final one: there’s always book 3…

So what’s next?

In the immediate future, I’m going to lie down in a darkened room, and embark on a course of writing-detox, to stop my characters invading my dreams…

(…Any suggestions on how to do this will be welcome, but I’ve decided on a two month fiction-writing-hiatus before I embark on The Isles of Sheffield.)

Before all that I’ll be taking a holiday or two, reading plenty, watching DVDs and trying to relax as much as possible - though I’m nervous as hell about MNW’s decision to publish or not (remember, the publication of the 2nd book was never guaranteed).

The (anxious) wait starts here...