I finished writing my novel in December, and I’m still getting dizzy trying to wrap my head around it. I’ve always wondered how it must feel to write “The End” under your novel’s last sentence, like I had seen it in movies, and it had always given me chills …or tears.

I was 12 years old when I decided to write a novel (I took a mental note for my adult self, so I remember that moment), and got right to work, but then resistance & its nasty friends were kicking in, and I was haunted for decades - it was mentally painful.

Eventually, the idea for the novel came to me about 16 years ago.

I began to write it in German, but when I moved to the States, I decided that it would make more sense to switch my writing to English.

It’s amazing when I look at what the story was back then (fragments and ideas, even drawings, very sweet characters), and what it became over the years (an entire novel, the characters grew older and became multi-facetted).

From an innocent kid’s story, this turned into dark fantasy.

Back then, I wasn’t ready for that, because somehow I thought writing should be “nice.” I had yet to learn a lot.

My grandmother used to read Grimm’s fairytales to me at bedtime, and I should have known better, but that idea of “writing nice” even got strengthened when I came to the States, where the Grimm’s fairytales are watered down, and kids tend to be shielded from negative experiences.

Then I discovered the British author Neil Gaiman. His writing and message freed me as a writer, because it felt like it gave me permission to write my way - to write dark, and to write the truth.

That’s when writing really started to work for me: When I allowed myself to be honest.

There was a surprising load of emotions involved in finally bringing that story and the people in it to life. I’ve been having a tough time parting with the characters, because even though they’ve been bugging me tremendously (like toddlers pulling at my sleeve), they’ve been living with me all of these years. I was used to having them around.

In his fantastic writing class, Neil Gaiman calls it “a kind of controlled insanity” to watch and listen to your characters, because they are the author’s own creation, yet they also take on their own life. He says, it’s a “slightly strange process, because there is something genuinely mad about it.”

So true. I loved that process, when they eventually became real. I fell in love with them the more I got to know them.

I ended up writing the first draft in 2 months, because I had heard that this is possible (funny how our brains work), and so I set my intention, then followed through.

It was magical, how then everything came together.

Writing was what I had always wished it to be: An exciting connection to the source of inspiration - the story unfolded and surprised me.

It wasn’t a painful struggle through resistance and self-doubt (I used to love having written, not to write), and when these thoughts did pop up, I acknowledged them, neutrally, not in a self-judging way, and kept working. I didn’t let anything stop me this time.

In the process I realized that the story needed all of these years to simmer, to evolve, and there was no way of speeding this up.

I shredded all these pages I had written over the years, because even my writing had changed.

And, oh my goodness, writing “The End” feels amazing, unreal, but incredibly natural at the same time.

Following through with your heart’s desire is the best feeling in the world!

With much love,

Writing: “The End“