It's the end!

For a year and a half I've been working on a novella, and it's almost finished.  I've managed to put in a couple of things than will all tie together at the end, and I'm even a little satisfied with how it's gone so far.  I don't like my own work, so I'm always nitpicking it to pieces, but this time I'm not doing it as much.  This story sort of mixes a lot of things together, and I resolves it nicely. Even a couple of years ago I would've had trouble trying to finish a story and I'm nearing the end of this one, which is gratifying for a whole host of reasons.  I'm down to consulting my two "props" again.  One is a professional nameplate, I had made up for the main baddie, so I could sort of focus things on, and another is sort of this weird crossword puzzle looking thing I made up.  I took the villain name's name and wrote it in bold letters across a piece of paper, then I used the names of people I know that I didn't really like and used a letter of the villain's name and matched with a corresponding letter in someone else's name.  It's sort of gives my villian real traits, because now I see real people, emotions, and characteristics I can associate with my villain. The paper looks like I crossword puzzle now, as some name are sticking out of the villian's name at different directions, but I really found this to be a useful exercise.  I'm really trying to show my bad guy more deeply in these final chapters, and to resolve everything nicely in a way that makes sense. It's a shorter book, I wasn't sure I could just draw things out forever, and it's a story that should need hundreds of pages to finish anyway.  Plus, I wasn't sure people's attention spans can handle long books anymore, and I want to accommodate readers as well as write something I'm comfortable with, so I'm happy on all counts.  The finish line is fast approaching!