It Is Finally Finished

I finally finished Thundersnow. I changed the ending so it took me a little longer than I anticipated  to make the ending seem natural.

The ending definitely leaves room for a sequel.

My emotions took me by surprise when I read this last chapter out loud to Carl. I didn’t cry while writing it (which I’ve been known to do) but cried like a baby when reading it.

It’s not a sad ending—not entirely. The whole book is sad as it deals with child abuse. Mainly psychological abuse.

And it has been gut-wrenching to get the story on paper.

I am so happy I’m through!

But the wave of emotions washing over me caught me off guard. I know this comparison has been made before and with good reason. But it was like having a baby. And you look down at your baby in wonderment, delighted the baby has ten fingers and ten toes—no matter if others see your baby ugly as sin—and are humbled that you played a part in the child’s birth and know, really know, the birth was a miracle.

And I’m reminded of perhaps my favorite poem, “On Children” by Kahlil Gibran, and have rewritten it, with apologies to the original:

On Books

My book is not my book.

It is words of Life’s longing for itself.
It came through me but not from me.

And though it is with me yet it belongs not to me.

I gave my characters my love but not my thoughts
For, perversely, they had their own thoughts.

I may house the words in the covers of a book

But they dwell in the house of tomorrow
In the eyes of the readers

Who will see them in their own way

And not seek to make them fit my conception.

For the words go forward and do not tarry with me.

I was but the bow from which the words
as arrows were sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends me with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let my bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

May I always bend in his hands and bow to his will as Thundersnow takes flight on its journey.