For me, coming to the end of an artistic project always carries waves of mixed emotions. There’s the high of actually reaching the end, sharing the exctement and thrill of the conclusion with the characters I have spent so much time with. Throughout the writing of a story, short or long, I churn up in myself the same emotional states of the characters I am recounting and creating. The sweeping climax as everything comes to head at the end is often the most emotionally engaging period for me.

There is also a sadness as the journey ends. Writing a long form piece like a novel swells this emotion. The characters, the settings, the very nature and tone of the work become a part of daily life. Even when I am not actively at the keyboard putting words in a line my mind is fluttering about their scenes to come and how they might be crafted and feel. All of that comfortable familiarity vanishes with the end of the project. What had been a stable, predictable schedule of life is no more and as a creature of established routine and habit that is always unsettling.

Finally, there is fear.

Of course, some of that fear is directed at the completed project. It’s about to be sent into the wider world, a cruel cold world of querying agents, submitting to editors, with the near certainty of impersonal rejection or outright dismissal without reply.

But some of the fear is directed at the nascent project already forming. The new work with vague characters and setting, where the tone is already known but achieving that is only a possibility. One that might not be reached. Will the project work, will it come together, or might it like others, fail to take flight and crash like an overladen bomber from the Second World War?

This is the time I am in now. My military SF novel is complete. 100,000 words following an American serving in the European Union’s star forces. It held suspense, fear, and surprises for me but now its time at the front of my mind has come to close. Now it is time to fully commit to the new story, the new characters, and to set fear aside and march into the new battle.