Manuscript Fresh from the Printers

On Saturday, I printed my complete manuscript for the very first time. Printing it made the whole writing experience more real than I would have expected.  It's one thing to view your story on the computer, but when it's hundreds of pages printed out in a huge stack, it makes it more tangible—more real. Printing it made me feel like my thousands of hours plucking away at the computer wasn't for nothing. I couldn't believe that I actually made it this far with my book. The smile couldn't be wiped off my face for hours after the said printing. The poor girls working at the print shop probably thought I was going to pass out due to the thrill of the adrenaline punched excitement that was rushing through my veins. 

Of course, I captured the moment with some pics for a blog post.  Just wait until it is my very own ARC, or better yet, the published book.  It'll probably look like my head is about to pop off.

My weekend consisted of a mad 500-yard dash of revising. Saturday was my deadline to release it for the first time in its entirety to a couple people to edit/critique it for me.  Before that, I only had a critique partner work on a few chapters at a time. Anyway, I stayed up late on Friday until I was about to drop dead of exhaustion, and awoke early on Saturday and finished another edit.  Tehehe!  Plus, I wrote the book's ending which has been stashed away in my head for months now.  I finally wrote it.  And. It. Is. Beautiful. 

All you writers out there, how did you feel the first time you printed off your manuscript?  Were you as jubilant as I was, speechless, or did you really pass out?