I’m freaking out just a teeny, tiny bit.

Okay, a lot of bits.

All the bits.

I’m freaking out.

SAINTS 2 IS ALMOST DONE!

I had this moment of absolute panic yesterday.  I finished writing up a Wesley chapter, and I went through my usual process at the end of a chapter:

• Add the word & page count to my ongoing chart
• Create a new Word doc for the next chapter
• Type, in bold/centered, the chapter # and POV
• Realize it’s a Landon chapter, and RUN AWAY

This actually does happen quite a bit with Landon’s chapters, but that’s usually because his are when things get done.  In this particular instance, the things that are getting done are, you know, the end of the freaking book.  I had his new chapter open, and I tabbed back over to my chart that has each chapter’s word count, page count, and POV, and I realized, well holy hell, this is the end of the book.  THIS IS THE END OF THE BOOK.  You know how authors like to start their books not at the end, but 100 pages beforehand?  It’s super annoying, and it works really well because then you’re on edge for 100 pages and by the time the end actually comes, you’re like, WOW OKAY DEEP BREATHS I MADE IT.  Well, yeah, I’m at that point.  Realistically, this is not going to take 100 pages, though I probably have a little under that left to write, but these are the last chapters of all the big stuff.  Part four is mostly just wrapping up, here’s where everyone is after a few months have passed and whatnot, here’s a quick spoiler that’ll make you want to read the heck out of Saints at sea, and okay bye then everybody.  But the last probably seven-eight chapters of part three is just go go go, here’s the end, oh my gosh.  And then we get to the last Landon chapter of part three (not ever, don’t worry), and it’s like?  Here’s the final battle at the cathedral?  It’s all or nothing right now?

AH OKAY RUN AWAY

The panic was real, guys.  I honest to goodness did literally anything else beside start writing that chapter.  I read a few chapters of the book I’m reading, I played on Tumblr for a little bit, I surfed my social medias, I walked around, I just absolutely did not start that chapter.  And not because I have writer’s block or because I’m not sure about it, but because it’s the end.  It’s really, really the end.  I’m never going to write about Landon as a main character again.  He’ll show up at the beginning of Saints at sea because I’m greedy and I never want to let him go, but this is it for him.  This is it for Ezra, too, and Miles and Madison and Vivian.  This is it for Wesley and Riley and Bellows.  And while I am sad about all of those, it’s Landon that’s holding me back.  I don’t want to leave him.  I don’t want to say goodbye.  I know that he’s going to be okay in the end, and he may even actually be happy, which is just groundbreaking if you know Landon, but I’m going to be sad.  I don’t want this to end.

I was saying this to Jen yesterday, and she said, “It’s like procrastinating the end of a book.  You don’t want to leave the world.  But you can always come back to it.  It’ll be there waiting for you.”  And, you know what, she’s right.  It will.  And if ever I really, truly need to play with Landon again, I can write for me, and not for the series.  I already have a few bonus scenes that I want to write, and heck, maybe I’ll add a few in there for him just so I can see him again someday.

I’m sad, but it’s not the end.  Not really.

As I write this, I’ve started and finished Landon’s chapter, and now I’m onto an Ezra one, possibly the last one of the novel, which is honestly just as sad now that I think about it, so damn, I need to make this one count, and then–well, and then it really is almost the end.  One more Madison chapter for this part, and the final battle at the cathedral is over.  That’s it.  Two more chapters, and this story has come to an end.

Alright.

I got this.

Let’s go kill some people.