Drafts and Ruins

The End (But Not Really the End)

I typed the final words of my manuscript this week. That’s the sentence most people expect to mean: the book is finished. Cue the champagne, right?

And yet, here’s the quiet truth: typing “The End” is really just the beginning of a very long climb.

A few Thanksgivings ago, we spent the holiday in Belize with our daughter and her family. One afternoon we visited the Lamanai ruins, where the jungle presses in close and ancient temples rise above the canopy. The High Temple, tallest Mayan ruin is closed to the public, but the Temple of the Masks is open to climbing. My family took the climb—one hundred feet of uneven stone—while I remained at the base, craning my neck as they grew small against the sky.

Standing there, I could picture the view, but I wasn’t the one on the summit. I was simply waiting below, knowing that the experience was theirs to have and that I’d only glimpse it secondhand when they came back down.

That’s what finishing my manuscript feels like. The draft is complete, a whole story from beginning to end. To many, that might look like the top of the temple—the moment when the book is ready to be read. But really, it’s more like standing at the base, knowing there is still more to go. The climb ahead is months of editing and drafting and rearranging. And, if I choose to query agents, it may stretch on for years before anyone else can set foot on these steps.

For those of you waiting on the book, you are here with me in the anticipation. You can see the shape of it rising in front of us, and all I can promise is that I’m on my way up, step by step, doing the work to make sure the view will be worth it when we finally arrive together.

So thank you for waiting here at the base with me. The climb continues.