I finished the rough draft of my first middle-grade novel last night.  Today, I printed it.

It is a strange mix of emotions (awe, pride, fear, despair) to see the physical manifestation of six months of effort in a solid stack right in front of me.

The corners are square, the edges neat, but the process wasn’t nearly so orderly.

Tens of sticky notes are plastered all over my desk; my character sketches are messy things with additions and subtractions and arrows pointing every which way; and my thematic notes reveal a writer deeply unsure of the direction she wanted to go (although she figured it out in the end…I think).

And all of this creative craziness comes from a person who is borderline obsessive compulsive and in love with checking boxes.

At times, it felt highly unnatural to write like this; my previous stories and chapter books were planned out before I wrote them.  But after reading me some Stephen King and other books on writing, I gave myself permission to let my characters lead the way.  That’s when writing became a whole lot of fun.

It may very well turn out that my kids and my husband are the only people who will read my book all the way through, but even if that’s the case, it will still have been worth the effort.  I learned a ton about writing and myself in the process of creation, and now I’m ready to tackle my next project.  After I revise for the next month or two, of course…