This manuscript has almost been done since June.

Still not done.

Why not?

The ending. It was as genuine as the grass in a cheap Easter basket.

I outlined. I reworked. I swore. I started a dump file that now contains almost 50,000 words that I loved so much I couldn’t bear to delete them, but I also knew I couldn’t put them in the story because they didn’t belong.

The only way out, I have long held, is through. I was going to write this thing if it killed me. I was going to push through until I wrote The End.

Then I remembered that my agent can tell when I’m shoving a square peg into a round hole in order to make a story. And she calls me on it.

And now she’s gotten me trained to the point where I can tell when I am doing just that, and I know enough to stop, and reconsider.

Breathe, Montrose. Use what you’ve learned. Trust the story.

So I went back to the beginning, and carefully picked up all the threads again, evaluating them, considering what they meant. I edited. I thought. I developed the weird concept map thing that somehow works to pull my scenes together into a story.

And it has taken forever. (For forever, read three months).

But it’s almost done.

Sometimes, the only way out is back, not through.