"The End"
The bittersweet of typing these two words...
What a year this has been! A really wonderful thing happened last weekend... I typed “The End” on the first draft of my debut novel, “The Keys to Dragonflies”! It’s difficult to put all the emotions into words - yes, I was super excited, and had a nervous energy buzzing around me; I was also a little sad because I had spent every morning in my little town of Firefly Cove for the past six months... and was like: “What now?” It was the paradoxical feeling of being ravenous and full at the same time - rather odd.
The proverbial ink wasn’t even dry before someone I shared my news with asked, “When’s it coming out?” I had to laugh because I had heard that this happens often. And, I get it, with many things, when you finish something, you’re really finished. But writing a book is not one of those things. The real work begins after you type or write “The End”.
For now, my manuscript will rest until the umbilical cord is no longer attached to me. I’m taking Stephen King’s advice and letting this story sit for about two months before tackling it with fresh eyes and distance. Hopefully, by then, neither the characters nor the story will feel like my “darlings”* anymore, and then I can follow the advice of Cascadia in Dungeon Crawler Carl: “Now get out there and kill, kill, kill!”**
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.” Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
I started writing my novel on July 7 this year, and had two goals:
Finish the first draft by December, and write 70,000 - 75,000 words.
I finished on December 20 with 71,689 words.
After listening to many authors*** speak about their writing process, and reading articles, blogs, and books on the topic, something finally resonated with me, and I buckled down and... wrote. I wrote most days, and on the days I didn’t write, I researched. I know many authors have goals to write 2000 words a day, but I knew that would not be a feasible daily goal for myself. I set my goal to 500 words a day.
I woke up around 4:15 every morning to write before going to work. Some days, I wrote more than 500 words, and other days, just getting 10 out was tough. There were days I was almost late to work because I wanted to stay in Firefly Cove, and there were other days I had time to kill before getting ready because I had completed my 500 words and was over it, or them (my characters). Yes, you heard me correctly - I got annoyed with my characters at times. Sometimes they didn’t want to cooperate, and other times they were too whiny and needy, demanding space on the page.
“I’m done with you!” I yelled at one of them one morning and slammed the laptop shut. Then later, at work - at the most inopportune time, really, Olivia (character) suddenly popped in my head and told me what her next move was. Feeling remorseful after abandoning her that morning, I wanted nothing more than to rush home and make up with her. Thus, I learned that my characters, just like people, needed a little breathing room now and then, and so did I. I also learned that I could skip a part and write something else, and later go back and finish the scene.
Writing my novel was a wonderful experience, and even though I only started in July, this story and its characters have been brewing in me for a few years. It was liberating to finally get them down on paper; I can’t wait for y’all to meet them!
Thank you for subscribing to my Substack and for taking an interest in my writing journey. I wish you all health, joy, peace, love, and prosperity for 2026!
* “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft” by Stephen King
**“Dungeon Crawler” by Matt Dinniman
***Listening to authors like Patti Callahan Henry, Marjan Kamali, Lisa See, Nita Prose, Kimberly Brock, Piper Huguley, Robert Gwaltney, and Jeffrey Dale Lofton talk about their writing processes greatly encouraged and helped me. James Patterson’s MasterClass was fantastic, too.