I have a draft!

I just typed the last line, or at least the first last line, of my early chapter book. This is my first post-Simmons novel, and it was nice to take what I learned in the Writing for Children program and use it to write a novel in more than a semester. I even had the luxury of deliberately slowing production at one point. I've gotten to savor the composing phase on this one for about a year, and these characters have been great company for that year.

They will continue to entertain me for a while. I did some revising as I went along, but the list of things to change or check is currently more than three pages long, and I'll keep finding new considerations. I'll probably do some asking for feedback soon, and that'll make me see new possibilities. In other words, this isn't an ending; it's a Phase II.

Still, arriving at and then constructing the last page feels good, even though I suspect it's cheesy and will need changes. So this is what one does with an MFA. One writes novels.