Finishing a Story, How Does It Feel for You?

I’m about to finish a long-running story, with the final chapter and epilogue coming up, and I realized I’m feeling something I didn’t really expect.

It doesn’t feel like “I’m done” or “on to the next thing.”
It feels… strange. Heavy. Quiet. Almost unreal.
I’ve spent so long living with these characters, this world, and this routine of writing, that reaching the end feels like stepping out of a place I’ve been inhabiting for a long time. It’s not sadness exactly, and not relief either. Just something very unfamiliar.

I’m curious how other writers here experienced finishing a story:
Did it feel like closure? Loss? Relief? Emptiness? Pride?
Did it hit you immediately, or only after some time passed?


I’d really love to hear how it was for you.

Never feel it. Dunno

I feel happy to know that I didn't abandon the book and finished it for the readers who invested their time reading my work.

No idea. But I only know how it feels with every closing arc.

I felt it so bad I took a hiatus before ending the series out of depression. Then someone asked me to finish it repeatedly so I did and it didn't turn out how I would have liked. Now I want to rewrite it along with a whole extra arc or two.

Melancholy.
The same way you feel after reading a good book, or after ending a long anime..
You're glad you did it. You're fine with the experience. You loved it. But it hurts at the same time.
It's not sadness, and it's not depression. Its not an overwhelming darkness that envelops you. It's a cloud that sits beside you. Something that was there, and now isn't. something you feel pat you on the back that says good job, but vanishes the moment you turn around to say thanks.. not even waiting around for you to acknowledge those words. "Good job.."

..Congrats, Cw. Good job.

Don't really know quite yet - I've finished arcs but not full stories.