I just wrote The Moment

There has been an image in the back of my mind ever since I started writing Handknit Heroes. A destination for one of the characters in the comic book, something bold and disturbing and which takes the story out of fun and games and into the seriousness of a hero’s quest.

I just wrote it. Just the image– I didn’t even write the lead-up to it, the big conflict leading to this moment of utter vulnerability and risk. I only wrote the image that’s been in my head for two years, because I was finally within the grasping of it (Marc knows what it is, and is probably still wondering if my drunken ramblings were truth or just ramblings).

On the one hand, I’m exultant at the writing, because it’s a really powerful, really beautiful (in a terrible beauty sense) moment. It’s an emotional payoff that is several issues in the making, and it ties the story together really well, makes this piece of fiction into truth.

And on the other hand, I want to weep for my characters, for what I have done to their lives.

Shattered, shattered, shattered.

Tomorrow I finish Issue 7 and reach my 100 page target.

The next day: start picking up the pieces.

My poor, poor characters. Will they ever forgive me?

Will the readers?