Birthing a book

I was speaking to a friend today and trying to describe the feeling I am getting from attempting to write this book.  I have completed about a third of it now amounting to six chapters.  As I struggled for the right words to describe the difficult but fulfilling experience I am having I realized that this experience with the book reminds me a lot of the experience of motherhood.

I have found it mentally stimulating - though ultimately exhausting at the end of each time I work on it.  It is not a unhappy exhaustion though because there is a feeling of accomplishment in it.  It has been intensely satisfying to see the culmination of images and scenes in my head turn into descriptive words on a page.  My hard work as a mother is the same way - exhausting, mentally stimulating (sometimes), but rewarding to no end when you see the efforts you are making with your children start to bear fruit. 

I have written over 40K words and after curiosity drove me to find out what the average word length of a fiction novel was and upon finding it to be about 120K I was pleased to see that what I imagine will in eventually actually be book length. 

The writing process has also proven to be similar to parenting.  I am constantly having to think both in the hear and now and in the future.  When you write a story you have to make the current plot interesting even as you set up for and prepare for future events.  What I do now will effect what happens later and if I do not prepare well enough now the end product will not be the ultimate happy accomplishment I hoped for.  It is all the same with parenting. 

It is exciting to me to see myself complete something that I never imagined being able to do before.  It will have been one of the single most difficult things I have done and I anticipate the satisfaction I will feel will be great considering the rewards I am already feeling for having put in the effort.