The end is near. See, it even sounds dramatic.

There's something almost ceremonial about the last chapter of a draft, isn't there? The first of the hundred or so times you write the beginning, everything's experimental. You try it this way, you try it that way, you make the main character older, you give her a wacky classmate-who-might-just-become-a-friend. You know that everything you know right now may change.

What you write when you write the ending may also change, of course. But it's a lot more planned. Chances are, you've had some of the lines in your head since the novel's early stages. Finally reaching the point when you get to type them (if you're a linear writer... and a typer...) feels like an achievement.

I'm not at that last line yet, and I'm enjoying this part enough to drag it out and do some revision in between. But I'm getting there, and the frenetic nights of freewriting before I knew the characters' names feels like a long time ago.