Book Status: MANUSCRIPT FINISHED!

 It's time to celebrate!!

A little less than an hour ago I finished the draft of the manuscript of my memoir.  So very thrilled!  I had wanted to have this done by Thanksgiving and I beat it be a week and a half.

The draft is a little less than 133,000 words.  Well within budget for a memoir or most other books.

It is packed.  Pretty much every moderate to major event of my life, from birth to where I am today: An artificial intelligence trainer, op-ed writer, and crisis line counselor.

The next to last chapter, I'm particularly fond of that one.  It's a "where are they now?" of most of the characters who appear.  And there are PLENTY.  I'm turning a lot of people who have been in my life into literary characters.

What happens now?  I take a break for a week or so.  And then I'll return to the manuscript with refreshed eyes, no doubt making edits and revisions (I made one earlier today, of the beginning of the chapter about my wedding, that is much nicer than it had been).

I'm also going to let a few friends, sworn to secrecy, read parts of it.  I've already shared some chapters with them.  They have each responded that these chapters are everything from "powerful" to "raw and visceral".

And then, well... we'll see.

But in the meantime, it's really happened!  At long last I have written a book.  I've got a really positive feeling about this.