Oh my goodness, I love this story

In less than two weeks, I give my thesis reading.

And I am done.

With my Masters.

Finished.

Finito.

Pinch me, please?

Anyhow, like my lecture, I’ve been practicing my twenty minute reading (to be delivered in front of all my peers, profs, and the program director!). A few weeks ago, I scrolled through the story, to pick out which scenes to read (because I don’t write super long scenes and definitely don’t have any long enough to last for 20 minutes).

And holy crap. It was hard to narrow it down. Why?

Because I love this story.

LOVE. IT.

I haven’t looked at Red Sky in almost a month, since I sent it off. So as I scrolled through the document, I kept finding scenes I wanted to read. The Mr. and I were in the car, and I kept saying, “Oh! I love this scene.” and “Maybe I should read this one. It’s really good.” and “This scene would be perfect.”

I have never felt like that before. The first version of Sparks is printed and stashed in our storage bedroom, and while it makes me smile when I look over it, it’s usually because I’m laughing (on the inside) about how bad it is. (Hence the plot-overhaul and re-write!)

So this loving thing? This rediscovering my story that I spent hours and hours and months and ohmygoodness YEARS honing and still being so happy with it? It’s new.

And with that, my love affair with writing has been sealed. I will never stop. I will always pursue writing another story that makes me feel like that.

(And, OH YEAH, I loved the reactions from my prof: “I may have a little crush on Graham myself” and ” I loved your thesis and even stayed up late last night b/c I wanted to keep reading it.” Can anything feel as good as hearing that??)

It’s definitely a High, but not just a High from praise. It’s a High from accomplishing something. And not just anything. Something I can be proud of.

Of course, now I just have to finish the book. But I am more excited than ever to tackle that ( somewhat daunting) task. ^_^

Have you experienced that feeling before? What motivates you to write?