I don’t know if other writers experience this, but as I’m moving into the final section of my fifth manuscript (book four of the Brotherhood series), I find that as I near completion of each rough draft, I become completely consumed by the book.  All of my thoughts and feelings become centered around finishing the work, and everything else in my life becomes peripheral.  It’s not a healthy feeling, either, and is probably the one thing about writing I dislike.  I want to hear from my writer friends on this.  Do you experience this same tunnel vision phenomenon, or am I just a freak?

Over the last week, I’ve gotten to write two scenes that have been in my head for several years.  It’s an odd sensation to finally complete something that I’ve carried for so long.  While I’m glad to be reaching this point of the series, I’m also a little sad to be done with those scenes.  It’s somewhat like saying goodbye to an old friend who you know you won’t see again.  Still, I’m grateful to have reached this point.  There have been many times when I doubted I would, so I’ll say goodbye to those scenes and move on to the next.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the rough draft.  It needs a lot of polishing and shaping, but the overall story feels pretty intense to me, and I think a couple of the twists will please most of my readers.  There are still about four and a half chapters to write, and little time to write them before school starts back, but I feel confident that I can get it done.  Others things in my life may suffer somewhat, but I want to make this deadline more than I can express in words.  Books two and three went through so many delays that I need to get this one out on time just to feel that sense of accomplishment, so my apologies if I don’t write too many blog entries over the next few weeks.  For those of you who read my books, I feel confident that it will be worth it.