novel, finished

That is correct. The work of four years, 107 pages, and approximately 50,666 words is finally completed. I'll have to edit the bejesus out of it, and the convoluted publication process still looms, but my novel is finished. I've been working on this story—or some version of it—since I was 19 years old. (Intriguingly, that's how old Stephen King was when he began writing his Dark Tower series.) It's gone through so many permutations that I scarcely remember how it began. Something about some time-traveling crime-fighting organization, or something. In retrospect, it's easy to understand why it got modified so much. Hard to think of anything more hackneyed or puerile, isn't it? I began working on this latest version nine or ten months ago, when I was still in Korea. My classes didn't start until two, and I had mornings completely to myself; I'd rise at nine or so, have a lazy breakfast in bed, snap on the computer, do some writing...and still have time for a nice constitutional down by the Gohyeon River and some push-ups. Work progressed slowly, but surely—different from the past, when I'd get about 40 pages into a particular version of the story and suddenly, savagely delete it in a fit of insecure self-disgust. I felt better about this version, more mature, more competent as a writer...but was still dogged by fear. Fear of screwing up. Fear of not doing it right. Fear of being hackneyed and puerile. But I was now old and wise enough to say, "Screw it. I'll write it and fix whatever's not right in the editing." And so it went...a paragraph here, half a chapter there. I completed my contract, gallivanted around Korea for a couple of weeks, then shipped out for home. The novel sat on my computer's motherboard (and on my USB drive), still incomplete. I took a lot of introspective walks, sat in darkened rooms in drunken desperation, read books of history, geography, and philosophy, endured a great many debilitating fugues...and finally resumed work. Last night, and the night before, I sat on my bed, a sick-tray on my lap, my laptop perched on top of it, cell phone, novels, comics, CD player and headphones on the comforter beside me, a glass of water and some reference books on the nightstand, and finished the goddamn thing. The climax flowed off my fingers with surprising ease, as did the denouement the night after. My Muse, whoever she may be, hadn't just descended this time; she'd fallen on me like a ton of bricks. She hadn't whispered in my ear; she'd used a bullhorn. As the last word appeared on the screen, I sat back, blinked, heaved a sigh, and collapsed onto the bedspread. Finished. Really and truly finished. About bloody time, too. It's not that it hadn't been fun. It had been a treat. People say that power corrupts, right? Novelists have absolute power. They create a world, fill it with protagonists and antagonists and supporting characters, and shape the action to their whim. If it suits them, they can hoist whatever character they want into prominence, or kill off whomever they choose. The only power higher than the novelist is the premise. (That's what James N. Frey, author of How to Write a Damn Good Novel, says.) Premise is the overlord. As long as the novelist stays true to the premise, and the characters, plot, action, paragraphs, sentences and words follow suit, the sky's the limit. Several times during the writing of this book, I felt acutely conscious of that fact. I was a god, a benevolent god, mind you, creating this world from the sun-dappled and shadow-haunted recesses of my imagination, creating characters from dust and smoke, setting them against one another, directing, shaping, sculpting, guiding. It was both a gigantic responsibility and the most overarching power trip I've ever experienced. But I have a problem. Responsibility is scary for me. It was fun, yes. It was a power trip, sure. But it was scary as hell, for reasons I mentioned before. I was mortally afraid of screwing up. Nothing terrified me more than not being able to transmit the pure, perfect concept I had in my head onto the paper. If I couldn't do that, I was certain that the result would be something flawed, laughable, mundane, amateur, even sickening. Even if it got published somehow, it would be a letdown for intelligent readers. It'd be more of a letdown for me, for being unable to bring myself to that cathartic state which writers who put down what's in their heart live for (a literary orgasm, if you will). I was worried it wouldn't come out the way I wanted it to. That made it scary. Fun and scary, like skydiving or whitewater rafting. While it's going along smoothly, you're on top of the world. If you make a mistake, the whole thing—and everything after—might be ruined. Those were the thoughts that ran briefly through my head as I lay on my bed after typing that final word. Gradually, I cast those thoughts aside. The thing was done, for better or for worse. I'd do my best with the editing; my friends would read it and give me their feedback, as would whatever editor I lighted on in the unforeseeable future. No sense in fretting now. I sat up. Pausing only to save the file in four different locations on two different drives, I immediately trumpeted my accomplishment on Facebook. Then I closed out Microsoft Word and put on a little One Piece (and some Cat Stevens) to relax. I've done a little editing between last night and right now (it's about 5:40 p.m. Pacific Standard Time), and having given the completed work a superficial glance, I think it's holding up. I'll have to tweak it plenty: there's already things about the climax, which I wrote just the night before last, that I'm noticing need to be changed. There's some minor character issues that likely need adjusting. I'll have to double-check my research, too. But once the editing's done, I reckon I just might have a damn good novel.