I (nearly) finished it!

Posted by Katie Regan at 07:49 on 18 Mar 2010

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I apologise for the long silence. As I explained in the previous blog, I've been a bit underground  these past few days whilst I finished my second novel which, um, I didn't actually finish. Oh dear.

In all honesty friends, I think this is why I have put off writing this blog until now. I just didn't know quite what to put. I feel like I'm in finishing-novel limbo. 

What I wanted to happen was come Monday morning, the morning of my deadline, I would be hold my completed novel in my hands and be able to write a blog along the lines of: "I did it! I finished the f*****r! Raaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!" whilst wrestling the three hundred and fifty page monster to the ground in a final victory.

But well, just as in childbirth, delivering a book never quite goes to plan and unfortunately that just didn't happen. In fact come10am on Monday morning, the time I might have been writing my smug and victorious blog, I was fast asleep, having only gone to bed at 4am after working all night on the book, trying to get what I had into good enough order to show my editor (she's only seen around three chapters, so really, this was her first proper glimpse of the opus I have been working on since July.)

 It turned out to be eight chapters short of the end by the time I delivered, but I'm confident I'll whip that into shape pretty sharpish after some much-needed feedback on the rest of the structure (Oh yeah! Easy! She says....)

Mothering Sunday was pretty awful though, only because my head was completely elsewhere. (a constant side effect of the job unfortunately). So whilst Fergus showered me with gifts - which we'll get onto later - and Egg, Fergs and I went to have lunch at a pub nearby, I sat there, my stomach in knot, trying desperately to look normal when I was just thinking about the long afternoon / evening / night ahead of me. (I'd already worked all morning, but really, a mum has to have some Mother's Day break, surely?)

Bless Fergus, he made me two of the most beautiful hand-painted cards and (with the help of his dad) had chosen me a plant and some gorgeous yellow tulips with Power Ranger stickers all over them -  a personal touch that I particularly appreciated. 

He had been going on all week about the ‘tea-pot' that he'd made me at school, too. This turned out to be a card with a cut-out, stuck on tea-pot on that he'd decorated, with a tea-bag attached inside so I could make myself an official Mother's Day cup of tea. This was so cute and he was so pleased with himself when he gave it to me that in my fragile, on-deadline state, it made me cry. (Fergs is used to my outbursts of what he calls ‘happy tears' since I am a woman on the edge most of the time, my eyes filling helplessly when he says things like, "I'm bored it just being you and me, I want a brother or sister", "why haven't you got a husband?" and "I know why you're not married, it's because it costs too much". That one made me cry tears of laughter, along with "Thomas's mummy works, she could give us some money" which was Fergus's solution to the problem that I have to write all the time in order that we can eat. A socialist amongst us methinks...!)

Anyway, as I said, all this was pretty much lost in my panic at getting the book done, which I sometimes resent to tell you the truth  I hate to think of the number of important occasions in the last five years that I have attended in body but not in spirit due to thinking about a book. Still, come 4am on Monday morning I did hand in a substantial amount that I am pretty pleased with considering I have written it in eight months when the first took me two years and I still feel most of the time like I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Monday afternoon was therefore bliss, if only in a small and temporary way. I can't tell you the joy of an H&M changing room when you have two, guilt-free hours to buy some clothes. Going for a drink on Monday evening with a friend felt like the first drink you have after being pregnant and not being able to cut loose for nine months. Just amazing. Perhaps all this stress will have been worth it for the sweet taste of freedom at the end. Not that we're at the end yet, but I have tasted it people, and now I want to swallow it whole. . 

 

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