Woohoo! Birthday! Presents! Trips! Novel! Pancakes! Where to start? :)

I had a fantastic weekend. Patrick got Friday (my birthday) off work, and the university closed Monday and Tuesday for Bank Holiday weekend, so we had a full five days to relax. My birthday was just perfect--we went to York, walked on the medieval city walls (pictures to follow in a later entry!) and I luxuriated in shamefully decadent Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee and slices of rich Yorkshire tea loaf at Betty's Tea Room. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) Patrick cooked shepherd's pie for dinner and chocolate birthday cake, I got awesome presents, and we watched the first two episodes of Pride and Prejudice (a birthday present from Patrick's mum) on the evening of my birthday. Really, how could it get better?

The answer? Pancakes! :) On Thursday, I'd made a great discovery at the local fair-trade shop: vegan whole egg replacement powder, which can be mixed in with any egg-requiring recipe. That meant, for the first time, I got to make a full load of American-style pancakes for the two of us over the weekend, in true Burgis family style. (Well, almost--I'm too lazy to make them in time for breakfast, so we had them as a pancake lunch, instead.) And the pancakes were soooooo yummy--the egg replacement didn't affect the taste at all. I'm already planning lots of decadent baking treats--chocolate brownies are on their way this afternoon! (Man, that egg replacement stuff is dangerous for our health.)

The best bit, though (well, after my birthday), came last night. I'd formulated a mad and reckless plan at the beginning of the weekend: to finish my novel by today! It seemed nearly impossible. By the end of Monday, though, I'd finally, finally finished writing the climax. Yesterday, Patrick took care of everything else, I got to focus ONLY on writing, and I wrote the last two short chapters (about twenty pages in total) in a blind rush. I typed "-THE END-" at 8:39pm last night.

Woohoo!!!!!!!

I stared at the screen of my computer. I started laughing. Nika and Patrick and I all celebrated. It was a really, really good night.

This morning, we got up at 6:15 and headed into Starbucks to do our daily writing. I sat down, opened up my notebook, and blinked.

What do I do now??????

Oh well. Only a month or so before I get the guts to look at it again and begin the rewrites. :) For now, I'm happy to just bask in the feeling of being done. After a lifetime of lapping up historical fantasy novels like sugar, I've actually written one. I thought it would be too hard, too much of a stretch--but it wasn't! I didn't! And wow, it feels good.

(Watch for the entry that'll come in about a month, when I will have just read through the entire novel for the first time, and I'll want to throw it in the fire. Don't let me do it, okay?)