Done!

I did it!  I finished my new book, The Sidewalk's Regrets.  Well, of course finished is a relative terms.  I've completed a first draft, anyway.  I know it's sprawling and messy and sketchy and unfocused and I'll need to do a ton of revising, but I'm done.

I'm already bursting with revision ideas, but I'm not going to plunge right in and start working on it.  I know I need some time away from it to be able to gain perspective.  I also haven't read the whole thing in a sitting yet.

Sometime next week, I will sit down with a print out and read through, jotting down notes.  Then I will set it aside until after the Film Festival when I will have a reasonable stretch of time to focus on it.  I'll read it again and write myself a chapter by chapter outline.  Then I'll dive in, trying to pull out of the raw material I have, something that works.

Then I'll start letting my critique partners rip into it.

I know revising is a long and painful process, but I'm actually looking forward to it.  I know there's something in this story.  It's raw and brutal and often painful, but there are some moments of beauty too.  And I love the ending.  I'm sure it's going to get me grief from some of my readers, but I still love it.

So now I'm going to go and relax in a hot bath with a book someone else wrote and revised.

How do you celebrate finishing your books?