Today I got up, and I did not have a Wheel of Time book to work on.

I finished the final revision on A Memory of Light early in the morning Saturday, then sent it off to Team Jordan. And I was done. Team Jordan will handle the copyedits and proofreads; I might have a chime-in now and then on how a passage should be tweaked or how a continuity issue should be addressed, but essentially, my involvement as a writer in the Wheel of Time has come to an end.

Now, that doesn’t mean my involvement with Wheel of Time fandom is over. I’ll have my appearance at Dragon*Con this year, as well as the tour in January for A Memory of Light. Beyond that, I intend to frequently attend JordanCon and be available to WoT fans for years, even decades, to come. I intend to talk a great deal about the experience of writing these books, perhaps even post some blog entries about the subject.

But the writing is done. I’m still a little in shock about that.

Just about five years ago, I got that fateful call from Harriet. Since that time, I have always had a Wheel of Time book that I needed to be working on. Occasionally I would take breaks, as I did to write The Alloy of Law a couple years ago. However, the knowledge that I soon needed to be back to work on the Wheel of Time was always there.

That work has been my constant companion. For reference, when I got that call, I had only released a couple of books: the second Mistborn novel had come out the month before. I had written others that were awaiting publication—including several Alcatraz books, the last Mistborn book, and Warbreaker. I also had a draft done of The Way of Kings, another done of The Rithmatist, and some preliminary work done on a book called Steelheart.

Yes, I’d written a lot. I still had only a handful of books out in stores. It had been two years since Elantris was released. I was brand new at this.

I still feel brand new. Yet, oddly, I also feel weathered. Finishing the Wheel of Time has been a wonderful experience, but it has also been grueling. I have always respected Robert Jordan, but now I respect him even more—and for a multitude of reasons. One of those is the fact that during most of his career, he was able to release a Wheel of Time book every year or two. That’s an awesome amount of work. Doing three books has worn me out.

For five years, whatever I’ve been doing—whether it be going out to dinner, sitting down to write, or checking my email—I’ve known that there was more to do on the Wheel of Time. I’ve known that I gave my word to Harriet and to the fans that I would work hard to get those books out quickly, and I carried a weight of responsibility for the book being split and people being forced to wait years beyond when they expected to get the ending. For five years, I have worked long hours because of those reasons. All the time I could find, I dedicated to the Wheel of Time in one way or another.