Let's Celebrate The Second The End!

It's time to CELEBRATE This Week with Ruth Ayres from Discover. Play. Build.  Every week Ruth invites us to share our celebrations from the week and link up at her blog. What a fun way to reflect on everything there is to be thankful for. 

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This week I'm celebrating the second the end!

*throws confetti*

Ah. The sweet smell of two absolutely beautiful words. Maybe my two favorite words when you put them together.

Don't they just have a lovely ring to them?

Last summer, I outlined what would become my second novel. I sat in a Starbucks in downtown Boston with my notecards and my flair pens and I thought through all the beats in my story. And then last summer I worked to draft but it was tricky because I was in the middle of major revisions of my first novel. 

Boston Harbor

My notecard outlining session in Boston June 2014

This summer, I spent most of Teachers Write cranking out words of this first draft to get to the end. And I finally did on Saturday night. Up until last night, I had only ever written a 50,000 word novel once before...but now I can say that I've done it twice. 

I can still barely believe it. I'm pretty proud of myself. As I brought the story to an end, thinking about all I put my characters through, I was just so happy. There is definitely work to do but I feel way better about this first draft than my first first draft. 

I don't know, maybe it's not cool to write The End at the end of stories. Maybe we need to help kids know that it's not how we end stories. But after lsat night I want to write The End at the end of everything. At least at the end of every first draft. 

They're just two glorious words. Words worthy of celebration. 

The End.

What are you celebrating this week?