I've just finished my third draft of my first novel in a trilogy, and like the joke about the man who just flew in, WHEW, are my arms tired (not to mention my fingers, my brain, and my tenuous grip on sanity).

Now, as I wait for the final verdict from the people who I am fortunate enough to have as my readership (i.e. my oldest daughter, my wife, a few select friends/family) to compose my fourth, and hopefully final, draft (all tinkering aside), I am filled with a weird sense of optimism and dread at the endeavor still ahead of me, my closest comparison being the time I ran the Chicago Marathon.

By the time the sun had come up, the day had turned into an unseasonably hot one in October (around eighty plus degrees). The first ten miles went really well; I was energetic, had hit my stride (an average ten minutes per mile, which placed me smack dab in the center of the thirty or so thousand participants), and began to believe that it was possible to really do this (the farthest I had run was nineteen miles three weeks earlier). Then things started to go south around the sixteenth mile. Every step was a trial in the making. The aforementioned heat became a tangible burden, like I had strapped hot and sweaty iron dumbells to my arms and legs. I felt deprived of the plentiful (if somewhat polluted) oxygen all around me, and sweat poured from me like musky rain (when comparing the before and after photo later, it looked like I had literally lost ten pounds (in reality I had lost six in the five, count them, five hours it had taken to finish the race. Talk about your dramatic weight loss)).

In short, it sucked.

Now, the funny thing is, I don't actually remember running the last ten miles or so. The photo on the right side of this very blog was taken in the last mile of the aforementioned race, and that blank, where the hell am I look, is as genuine as it gets. I was in a fugue state at that point, very similar to the one I get in when I stop thinking about writing and just tell the story.

At this point, you may be asking what is the point? The point is that I did finish the race. I didn't think it could be done, but I did it.

Wanting to be a published writer who gets paid enough to get to do this for a living is a lot like that. Does it take dedication? Yes. Sacrifice? Ditto. Time? Too much. But let me tell you from someone who lives it every day, and who has for the last ten years since I began to take myself serious enough to write seriously...

It's worth it.

Every last mile.