If you’ve been following along my NaNoWriMo journey and following my word count stats, then you probably saw that I had huge word count days last weekend and I officially hit 50,000 words on Sunday. Then this week, my word counts dropped off a bit.

I also posted that I had a few more scenes to write and most importantly, the grand gesture / reconciliation scene. (The conflict scene I already wrote.)

For a week, I’ve been going round and round about the grand gesture scene. How to set it up, what it should be. I had some vague ideas, mostly to do with the time of year (New Year’s Eve), but I had no idea what I was going to do. And neither of my main characters were cooperating. They were both silent on the issue.

(Yes, my imaginary characters talk to me.)

So my brain kept churning over possibilities. Until a thought occurred to me on Tuesday night. A kind of unexpected twist. A change to the normal linear romance progression. Something that would effect the female main character.

I sat on that for a while. I even shared with a friend what I was thinking. (I find it really helps me to talk things out when I’m stuck.)

Then last night, inspiration hit. And it was even a change from what I had originally conceived (although I may still write that ending too.) This, of course, resulted once again in NaNosomnia, my brain buzzing with possibilities. And so tonight, when I sat down, I got it all out on the page. And I’m pretty happy with it. I think it works. It’s a little different, a slight twist, but I like it.

I’m calling it the “alternate ending 1” for now because I haven’t 100% committed to it. I still plan to write the other ending (now tentatively called “alternate ending 2) and I also plan to write a more traditional ending.

If I do commit to this unexpected ending, I will need to revise the rest of the book to make it flow and work. But the important thing is I got it on the page. And that also means that. . .

[drum roll please]

THE STORY IS FINISHED!

Okay, the first draft is finished. But I have never finished a full length novel. Oh, I have “won” NaNoWriMo in previous years because I hit 50,000 words, but most of those stories aren’t finished. This is the first, full length novel that I’ve written. And right now, I’m pretty darn ecstatic.

Hopefully my brain will now give me some peace and let me sleep.

Although I fear that NaNosomnia will continue to plague me as I start on the revisions. We’ll see!