I'm going to cry...

Actually, I have cried. I sat for a quarter of an hour, sobbing onto mum's shoulder.

I finished NaNo06. At 21.28 today, while listening to 'Stairway to heaven', I wrote those two beautiful yet horrible words. The End.

The End. After nearly a year (355 days to be exact) of scribbling frantically when the physics teacher wasn't looking, of tearing my hair out when the ninjas turned up, of shouting when Marcus decided that astronomy was really much better than medicine, of banging my head against the wall when Geravan got into fights with important allies... 355 days of laughing and crying, and then it's over. The End. Just like that. For 355 days Marcus and Geravan have been with me, and then they suddenly decide that it's enough. The End. They walk out on me, just like that, those ungrateful little... No, actually I love them.

It's the first time I've ever finished something as long as this. The last time I finished a story (not counting schoolwork) was a two-page something about a spider and a butterfly when I was about seven (even that had a walk-in...).

And now my historical mess of a novel (total wordcount 264 k, maybe, I haven't typed everything yet) is finished. The End. I'm happy, but also sad. I mean, there's editing and rewriting to do, but it just won't be the same. The End.

Shoulder to cry on? Someone? Please?