It’s no illusion, Climbing Maya is finished…

I wrote the final chapter today. It takes place in the middle of the night in our bedroom. Vicky is dead asleep and I’m talking to her about the meaning of life. Vicky grumbles and tells me to shut up.

Who said this wasn't autobiographical?

So, I’ve finished the first draft of my thirteenth novel. Clocking in at 89,000 words, it’s a little shorter than I’d like but I’ll be adding and amending things during rewrites so anything could happen.

This book turned out to be far more ambitious than I ever thought it would be when I started. Back then, I thought I had an interesting book about people struggling with success. Now, I see that, all along, I had been aiming for the brass ring. You might call it the Philosophy of Empathy or Success Theory but it’s simple and profound and it works.

I’m very pleased.

Every book you write changes you a little bit, by which I mean every book I write changes me a little bit. When Cheryl read one of my earlier books, she said that she didn’t buy the story of hope because the writer was too damned cynical. You might say that, with Climbing Maya, I’ve grown out of my cynicism. Once you read this, any claim I might make to being a cynic just won’t hold water.

Looks like I might have to start acting like an adult.

But not right away.

Vicky and I are still sending With Eyes to See and No More Blue Roses to publishers and agents. After we’re done with those, we’ll need to start sending out Love of Your Life. However, once that one’s done, we can start sending out Climbing Maya. This is not a mass-market kind of book but I think those who do read it will agree it’s worth reading.

We’ll see.

NOTE: So, the plan was to write a horror novel after this. I'm sure plenty of you were pretty dubious the first time you heard that. Well, on the way home today, I thought, "But I'm a comedy writer. I should be writing something funny!" And so, the process begins anew...