Begin Again

The book I wrote in scattered chapters and tucked away is coming full circle. It’s all coming to an end—by beginning once again.

“I’m going to finish my manuscript by the end of the year,” I told my editor at the start of summer. “I can’t keep pushing it aside. My protagonist is now a few years younger than me—she and I were always meant to be the same age. I don’t want to reach my forties still trying to tell the same story of twenty-something emerging adulthood.”

Jeanne, my editor, was thrilled.

For the past seven years, I’ve written fragments of a larger story. It was a story I first came with on my commute to work—not as a novel, but as a daydream. My protagonist was a blend of my alter ego and an imaginary friend, conjured up to help me get through the day. But my life has changed since then, as it does for all humans of earth school.

These characters started as figments of my imagination. Now, they have identities of their own. Sometimes I’ll think about a movie and hear two of them debating its meaning. They feel less like imaginary friends and more like my kids. I had one vision for who they'd grow up to be, but now they’re telling me who they are—and who they’re becoming.

A psychic once told me, “Who’s to say you aren’t a conduit for a story happening in another universe?” And my astrologer said, based on my star chart, I’d only be in my corporate job for seven years. It’s been just over six, and I feel an end of an era approaching—not just professionally, but in the story I’ve carried for so long.

So why am I sharing all of this with you?

Why admit I’ve procrastinated? Why mention I’m a bit of a hippie with my love for astrology, my tendency to wear headphones so people think I’m on the phone when really, I’m role-playing conversations between my characters out loud (okay, I didn’t mention that part... but you get the gist)?

Because I think the universe is nudging me back to where this story began—so I can finally finish it.

Ironically, I’ve been assigned to a project that takes me on the same long commute that sparked the first seeds of this novel. The book I wrote in scattered chapters and tucked away is coming full circle. It’s all coming to an end—by beginning once again.

So from this day dream to its final draft — I hope you join me on this journey.

With Love,

Lex