My file still contains plenty of notes that say things like “Consider revising” and “check for repetition” and “were you going to do something with this?” But I typed the words “The End” in my file today. And then thought, ugh, that’s silly, the reader knows it’s the end and deleted them. Still, the point is that I reached a conclusion to a story. Yay, me!

It’s a little short — the current version just barely breaks 60,000 words, so it’s a quick read. I thought I’d probably add a few thousand words on my first editing pass, and I did, but I also deleted a few thousand words, so net gain of editing was negligible.

I don’t think I’ll be adding any more scenes. I wondered before I did my first read whether maybe I could — maybe a breakfast scene, maybe another outing somewhere? — but it felt very cohesive when I was reading it. If I added, it wouldn’t be because there are missing scenes, it would be adding just for the sake of adding, which is not something I feel inclined to do. I think it’s just going to be a short book.

I’m too close to it to know if it’s any good, of course, but it’s a little bit of a ghost story, a little bit of a mystery, and a lot of a romance. I did not expect those proportions to turn out that way. I specifically thought sometime back in December when I returned to this story that I wasn’t going to worry about writing a “romance.” Although what I said back then was that I’d be writing “stories that maybe wind up with happy endings where good people who like one another end up looking toward the future together” and that’s actually a very apt description for what my main characters wound up doing.

I guess I should set a release date. And ask for some beta readers, do a few more editing passes, write a book description… maybe that’s all for later, though. I think today I’m just patting myself on the back. Shine on, self!