Chapter 21

I press send.

Oh, the joy of crafting a chapter out of the blue, the first one I didn't plan on and yet I intentionally planted tons of Easter Eggs. Now I can't see my book without it anymore. This. One. Stays.

Oh, the joy of sharing my original, hand-picked words with my test readers. I love it. I hope they love it too.

Chapter 21. Wow. I am so far on this road now and yet so far from the end. Patience is something I need loads of and do not possess much. I require every ounce of it that I can get, every gram I can master.

Breathe.

You know what I'm talking about if you've been here before.

Breathe.

This is a lengthy journey and I loathe the length. They make me dizzy. They make me nauseous. I just need to get out of this car. Yet the car won't stop, can't stop, won't brake, can't break. I'm here until the very end.

It does not get easier, though. It gets more bumpy. More complex. More complicated. More delicious. It's addictive.

21 chapters.

There's nothing simple about this love story. I was deceived by my own naivete. What a fool my characters made of this amateur of a novelist. They have layers - so many and too many of them - and working through them all is beautiful.

A labor of love. A labor of patience. A labor of writing.

I open the file, here we go, Chapter 22.