I have fin­ished And The Stars Ran Red.

Can you believe it? I cer­tainly can’t, well to a degree any­way. I mean, after approx­i­mately 11 months (I think I started writ­ing it back in Feb­ru­ary ’09) I have finally fin­ished my first real book man­u­script. The end kept mov­ing; shift­ing like a sneaky worm, and evad­ing my grasp, but even­tu­ally I nailed down the final few sen­tences and that was it. Last line/done.

What next? Well, I think I need to take a break… a proper one, where I don’t think about the book for a good cou­ple of weeks, per­haps even a month (though I’m appre­hen­sive about leav­ing it for that long). I already have a cou­ple of ideas — though barely more than intrigu­ing thoughts loosely knot­ted together with trin­ket details — and am excited to get under way in devel­op­ing one of them into a novel, novella, or per­haps even a few and build some short sto­ries. Real short sto­ries to, unlike some of the brief ones I have written.

I am also inter­ested in pur­su­ing some form of written-word web ser­ial that could span a few months. Per­haps even in col­lab­o­ra­tion with another writer, or author… am I now an author? Not printed, yes, but still. That would be a new prospect, and one that would help exer­cise my imag­i­na­tion; my writ­ing. Another avenue to pur­sue — peruse.

For now though, this day and the imme­di­ate ones that fol­low, I will relax in know­ing that even though I may write some­thing or other, I do not have to, and it will be okay.

…and again: I’VE FINISHED!