Since my last post, I wrapped up the first draft of The Spark.

And that's it.

I know, I know. I was so fired up about it. I kicked off NaNo by writing thirty-one thousand words in about eight days: a personal record. But then I hit that same point I hit after every Big Push, something I call the Big Letdown. That's when you set down the proverbial pen, read what you just wrote, and let out a long, theatrical sigh.

You knew it was bad while you were writing it. You just didn't think it'd be this bad.

But that's normal. Nearly every writer goes through that. (And believe me, I personally know nearly every writer. I see them every week at the meeting.) Unfortunately, fixing a manuscript takes work, and I hate work. So, my work has been sitting on the counter like a batch of cookies cooling, except that I haven't gone back to the manuscript as often as I would have gone back to the cookies.

It's an important time, though, this cooling period. You get to come back to it later, read it, and think, "Who the hell wrote this?"

I'm looking forward to that.

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