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Seventeen pages yesterday. Fourteen today. Still not done.

So many choices. I am lost. Death has come at last. We stand bloodied and unbowed with the gore of our enemies on our face, and I am content. Merry would wish it were otherwise, but neither of us is bothered by what we’ve done, only trying to figure out what to do next.

I can feel the end, as if I have reached into a dark space, and am reaching as far as my finger tips can stretch. I feel something at the very limit of my reach. I know it is the end, but I cannot see it. I cannot feel all of it. I do not know it’s shape complete, but only in the few pieces I can touch. A corner here, a smooth edge there . . . It’s there, I can feel it, but it’s just out of reach, no matter how far I stretch my fingers, my hand, my arm, my shoulder. I shove myself against the hole, and try to grab a hand hold so I can drag it out of the dark and into the light. I am no longer worried about what shape it is, or what it may be, only that it is the end. I long for the end of this book. I beat against these last few pages like the bars of some cage. I want out!

I’ve been trapped in fairie long enough, and I want concrete under my feet, and buildings looming above me. Humanity has never looked so good to Merry and me as it does in this moment. If we could only decide which way to turn, what choices to make, but they are such final choices. Make a mistake here and Merry will be paying for it, for the rest of her days. For me as a writer, it will either simplify my life or complicate into a Gordian knot, that no sword will be able to cut through. I have to be so careful not to make choices that will simply make my job easier, but hurt the series itself. I’m so tired, so very tired. Hard to think clearly.

I broke for a few minutes to do the physical therapy for my ankle. I’d hoped that would help me choose, but I’ve sat down and feel just as muddle headed. I can’t decide. I just can’t decide. So frustrating. But I’m so tired, I don’t trust myself.

When I say tired, I don’t mean physically. Any writer that’s really tackled a big project will know what I mean, when I say that my mind is tired. That part of me that gets used when I write, is tired. I need something to recharge the batteries. Sometimes, just a few minutes of doing something else is enough. Sometimes, you need to walk away for a little longer, but I’m so close to the end that I don’t want to quite. I could finish today, damit, if I could only think my way clear.

I’m going to step away from the computer for a little while. I’d promised the kiddo a trip out today, if I finished the book, but maybe I’ll do the trip now, and hope to come back to the book refreshed. Or, I’ll come back to the computer with the book dead in my hands, having lost all the momentum I’ve fought for in the last two days. It’s like rolling the dice in Vegas. If you keep going when you’re hot, sometimes you break the bank, but sometimes you roll that one time too many and you loose it all. But until the dice hit the table, you don’t know whether it will be lucky seven, or snake eyes.