Behold, my shiny novel!

This weekend, circumstances outside my control demonstrated the dedication I have to my craft.

We’re not allowed to use gas-heater in the flat I share with two other students, because it’s old, in desperate need of repair and in imminent danger of exploding. Yep, I’m serious.

Our landlord promised to take care of it this week. But all the promises in the world won’t warm up an apartment when it’s only 5°C outside. None of us has a thermometer, with which we could have measured the actual temperature inside, but it felt like 12° max.

I could have gone to my parents over the weekend, where I would have been toasty warm, fantastically fed, and famously entertained. But I wanted to finish my book. I love my baby, but I’m ready to move on, to start something new. It was either finish it this weekend or drag myself through it another week, since the weekends are the only times when I can sit down and write for more than two hours straight. I’ve found that two hours fly by, when you’re self-editing. You’re working on the third paragraph, and poof, time’s up.

So, I chose to brave the cold to commit a hundred percent to the finish-line. In an attempt to keep warm, I wore three pairs of socks, leggings underneath my sweatpants, turtleneck covered with a fleece jacket topped by a wool overcoat. Fingerless wool gloves completed the ensemble.

And, no, I don’t have photographic evidence of me looking like a bum.

I do have proof of my success. Said proof is a new and shiny manuscript, pared down to approximately 97.500 words.

I did it! I finished it. Victory! Fini, finis, finito. I weathered (ha!) the chill and typed like it would save my life. It probably did save my sanity.