WWSW

Which, of course, stands for 'What would Shakespeare write?'  I remember a conversation I had with my daughter, Maddy.  We were discussing 'Romeo and Juliet,' and she said that of course, she had read it.  She was in school, after all.
I remember my days of reading the same play, and how much fun I had when I was even younger than she is now listening to a vinyl record of 'Macbeth.'  The witches and the ghost scared the hell out of me, and during the summer when I had the time I would stay up late in the living room, listening to it over and over again.  The power of the play enthralled me, but I guess I was too young to get all the mature bits.  Growing up, I was told over and over again, in a thousand subtle ways, how the Bard's work was high art.
Then, I got my hands on one of the various Complete Works.  I still haven't read everything, but imagine how shocked I was as I went through 'Titus Andronicus.'  That stuff was raw.  I knew then why I had never seen that play in any schoolbook, and I hated every English teacher that I had ever had for cheating me of it.  They tried to educate me, but all they did was take a still image of something that lived and breathed, and scrub it and bleach it to make it clean and sanitary.  Then they served it up with pomp and circumstance and said, 'Isn't this beautiful?'
These were the plays people went to see for amusement, not enlightenment.  They were the primetime of their day.  If Shakespeare was around today, he'd be writing 'All my children' meets 'Saw.'

First draft is done

It's done.  I finished the last chapter earlier today, and I got the last few paragraphs of the epilogue written while waiting for my meal at Outback.  The first draft of my first book is done.
I know there's a ton more work I'm going to have to put into it.  It has to be rewritten, and all the blank spots where I just put the main idea in brackets have to be fleshed out.  Plus I need resolve all the contradictions that I created when I was halfway through a chapter and thought, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I did it THIS way instead?'
I started this book a few years ago.  I can remember sitting in my room back at UTA and scribbling a few paragraphs, thinking how cool it would be to write a book.
If I'm honest, it's a big regret of mine that I didn't work harder at my writing back then.  I have no idea what Roja would look like if I had completed it, because so much of the book it filled with places and events that I only experienced later.  Maybe it would have been better, maybe worse.  Even if I didn't write my book then, I could have finished short stories.
This is what I want to do.  This is what I want to get up in the morning and think about while I'm eating breakfast.  This is what I see myself doing from this point on until I'm gone.
I already know which book is going to be next.

The home stretch

I'm working on the last chapter.  I've filled in a small gap in an earlier segment that I had left unfinished simply because I work on one at a time, on paper, and had tucked that one into my notebook and forgotten it.  Once I finish this chapter, the only thing left will be the epilogue.  I already know I'm going to let it sit and ferment for a bit before I start the rewriting, but just being able to type in the words, 'First draft is done,' will be pretty amazing.
I've done a couple of quick readings, and it's amazing how different the story is now form when I started.  I'll start a segment or a chapter one way, and in the middle I'll think, 'wait, what if --' and then make a left turn at Albuquerque.  Now all I have to do is finish the damn thing, and then rip through it from beginning to end and make sure it makes sense.  No problem, right?
Just like pulling teeth with a set of tweezers.