Final Point for My Novel (About Time)

I've reached the end of the novel I've been writing for... oh wow... fifteen years?

"When the Gondolier Dies", 105 pages, a little over forty thousand words. There's one chapter to revise in the middle, a few corrections to make here and there, but all in all, it should be finished soon.

This is the first novel I've ever finished. Before that, I'd started plenty that never survived the test of dispassionate rereading after a few months. But this one did. No matter how much time had gone by, months, sometimes years, I was always surprised to find it good. And to want to keep going.

There are advantages and disadvantages to taking so much time to tell a story.

On the advantage side, there's a "Boyhood" vibe (the Richard Linklater film shot over 12 years): the person who starts the book isn't the same one who finishes it. You can feel a genuine transformation in perspective as the story progresses. And I'm not making it up: it's mine.

On the downside, there's the evolution of style: I write better now than I did fifteen years ago. Still, I didn't want to rework the beginning too much, to keep the original energy. I trimmed it a little, aired it out a little, but I respected the progression and the turns of phrase as if they'd been written by someone else.

Next step? Get people to read it. Find a publisher. Write the next one a little faster.

The first sentence:

If you ever run into one of my friends, tell them I'm doing fine.