On Finishing Writing a Book

Today, I’m working on finishing the sci-fi novel I started a year ago.

It feels weirdly surreal that I’m going to be writing the last chapter, the last sentence, and the last words shared between my two male leads. Their relationship has grown as I’ve grown in numbering my pages, to the point where it feels like I’ve written a realistic couple. My understanding of the alien language and the magic structure has become more in-depth than what it was when I started out.

Of course, I’ll edit and flesh out bits and pieces that need to be fleshed out. I’ll take out scenes that don’t make sense, or seem too dramatic for the moment. I’ll work on making the main bad guys seem more human, but also more realistically crazy.

I don’t want to give away my plot, for fear that someone would steal it. But it is a sci-fi novel, one that starts in space, and ends up back on Earth.

My goal is to try and get this baby published.

One thing that I look for in novels is representation. I feel like there are lots of gay novels out there, and some of them seem to focus on the eroticism of queer relationships, or the fact that the main character is gay. I like to look for characters that aren’t gay just for the sake of the plot, but because that just happens to be a part of their personality, as normal and common as someone liking soccer or a specific chewing gum.

This is how I’ve written my two main characters. Yes, Simon is married to a man, that’s not the main focus of the story. He’s struggling with dreams. There’s danger and running away from said danger. There’s magic and an alien language that comes from the stars. (I’m being vague on purpose.)

There’s action, danger, and a subplot to save the Earth. But not from aliens as you might think.

I’m excited to write the final chapter, the final page. I know now where this book is going to end, and I’m excited to see how it turns out. I tend to write with an idea in mind, and go from there. I write the way I think, in intense sporadic ideas, some that turn out well, and others that don’t.

I’m very proud of myself that I’ve come this far, that I’m actually going to finish my book. It’s been a while since I’ve written a novel, probably more than five years. I wrote a small mountain of poetry, which I also want to write more of. (But that’s another post, for another time.)

So, here’s to chasing the stars and coming home after a long flight in space.

Cheers,
Meghan