End time

I woke at 4:00 this morning, and went to work. I broke for one hour to have breakfast and dress, then carried on until 1:00, pushing until I'd read/edited the outstanding pages. Soon I went back to work again, revising, making changes. It's going on 9:00 pm and I know I must stop. 

Kenneth Atchitey wrote a wonderfully practical book on writing titled The Writer's Time: Making the Time to Write.  It was one of the first books I read on writing, and I heed his lessons still. 

Today I was remembering what he had to say about "End Time":

End Time is characterized by high energy flow and pressure to finish … Lock yourself up if necessary, turn off the phone, leave home, anything to allow End Time its way once you're sure its way can lead to the end. … The rule then is: If you're wondering whether you're experiencing End Time, you're not. True End Time displaces all other thoughts. 

I'm forcing myself to call it a night, but I'll be back again early, I know, determined to finish this draft (the 6th), and send it off to my editor in a few days.

The really good news is that I'm pleased with it. The novel is starting to flower, and I like that. There will be changes, no doubt — I'm haunted by a suspicion that there are critical scenes missing. There will be drafts 7 and 8 to come, and perhaps even a 9th, but it's beginning to fill out, connect. As Robert Olen Butler would say, it thrumms. 

Good night! It's time for me to thrumm to sleep.