Accomplishment

I finished my play last night. 99 pages, 98 if you exclude the Dramatis Personae, which I do not. My feelings of happiness, genuine pleasure, would not fade even as I drifted off to sleep. At long last, after countless failures (Mountain Goats, yeah, I said I would finish that, but turns out, I'm a liar. Hallucinations in a Coffee shop, triad of Hitmen, detective noir), I have completed an original work of fiction.

Of course, "original" isn't exactly the right word to use in this context. I probably, in the fortnight (fancy, pretentious British word), or two that I spent writing it inadvertently ripped off hundreds of romance novels, Shakespearean cues, and dialogue from The Catcher in the Rye or something. But that shit doesn't matter, because this was a brainchild of mine, conceived as I drifted off to sleep on an exceptionally cold night.

Sure, I'm happy at the fact that I finally completed a work, one thick enough to beat goats to death with, but the pleasure that pervaded my dreams last night wasn't the fact that I completed an original piece, it was the fact that I had the sheer force of will to continue with what I said I would. My previous failures are no longer a problem for me, especially since my play could beat them to death with its sheer girth. The feeling of just simple achievement is more pleasurable than the most powerful orgasm or the purest heroin.

I claim to be done, but I'm not. No sir, not even close. The editing, trimming, and screening process will take longer than it took to write the first draft. I need to find the mechanical and grammatical errors, which I'm sure are aplenty, need to trim the fat from the storylines and plot points, as well as redundant dialogue and meaningless exposition. On top of that, I need to show it to the people who are actually interested in reading it. I definitely want to give a freshly edited, third draft copy to my English teacher, for sure. Maybe send out a copy to everyone who had a character in the play too. But that...might not be very smart. >_>

Cheers! To the editing room!