The End!!

Posted by Katy Regan at 09:09 on 15 May 2010

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And so I came to the end... Of my sanity, my tether and at times, in my darkest hours readers, what felt like my life. (Ok that might be a bit dramatic. Give me a few weeks to get over the trauma and I am sure, like childbirth or running a marathon, I will feel differently. I will have forgotten the pain and will want - like a mentalist - to sign myself up for another one!)  I'm still a bit frayed around the edges.

But anyway, yes, I have finished the second novel. (I do so like saying ‘second novel')   Only around ten months after deadline but we got there in the end. As you can see, here I am, in this photo holding my finished manuscript and looking remarkably smug. (and probably a bit drunk)

It was all a bit intense at the end, went all a bit ‘student days' what with staying up till silly o'clock and eating rice pudding out of the tin, never washing up, never having a shower (I think I went three days) Just totally grim.

I typed the words THE END last Tuesday, around 4pm, half-delirious after a three day writing marathon which saw me having about four hours a night sleep and not getting out of my pyjamas until it was time to go and get Fergus from school.  My bum went numb (and no doubt very fat from the sheer amount of time I have spent sitting on it)  I developed a weird  twitchy / runny thing eye thing and I think I must have killed off half my brain cells in the process since I am finding this blog very hard to write.  I can't seem to type or be able to string ideas together (could this be official burn out??! )  

Anyway, suffice to say that by the end, I looked about ninety-four. At best. My friend arrived from Chile to see me about half an hour after I'd typed The End and looked slightly disturbed at the sight of the shell of a woman she saw before her on the doorstep.

Talk about second album syndrome. This was without doubt the hardest thing I've ever done. It may even top childbirth just for the sheer longevity of the thing. At last childbirth is over in around twenty-four hours, even if you have a long one, which I did.

I am feeling pretty pleased with myself only because I truly, genuinely, thought this day would never come. I thought that was it. I only had one book in me, a second was just being greedy, just beyond the realms of possibility (unfortunately I was contracted so I had to get over this pretty quickly).) There were tears, tantrums and, readers I admit it, occasional drinking (alone) in the afternoon...But like the novelist Joshua Ferris said, and as I think I wrote in this blog, writing a novel is a preposterous thing to undertake and even a mediocre writer has achieved an amazing thing. To paraphrase his no doubt far more eloquent words,  you can basically diss the product, but not the achievement.

 That kept me going during the darkest hours of banging my head against the wall. The fact that this hurt and felt nigh on impossible, because well, it was.

But hey, we got there in the end!

I would love to say that now, I am euphoric, and I guess I am in a quiet, this-is-the-best-feeling-of-relief-I-have-ever-felt kind of a way, but mainly I just feel a bit unhinged.  I mean proper batty. It's like, all that energy that was used up to finish the thing, the hours of bum-on-seat time, is now still pouring out of me but has nowhere to go. I feel like I'm on speed.

I ranted at a waitress today, am driving like a maniac ( anyone who's ever been in a car with me will no how serious this situation is) and have taken to buying things and taking them back plus making incessant lists about things I want to do, just because I now have the time to do them .  Things like, fix car stereo, get hair dyed (it pretty much went a quarter grey whilst writing this book), clean cupboards, buy a Henry Hoover (??! ) get a personal trainer.  All very crucial things, as you can see. Don't worry, I won't do any of them. This happened last time I finished a book, too and all that happened was that I spent about a week in the pub / lolling around cafes making more lists and then got back to work about a week later!   My intentions of losing two stone and getting a six pack now I had time to do it, over before they'd even started.

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