I have just, for all intents and purposes, finished the original scope of THE QUEEN’S BASTARD.
There’s a chapter, maybe half a chapter, of what would’ve been denoument from the original synopsis, but there have been enough changes to where that section was going as to pretty much dismiss it as relevant in the scheme of finishing the original book’s storyline.
This meta-book, or whatever you want to call it, clocks in at 940 pages, or 235,000 words. As it happens, because my editor was a bit horrified at the prospect of a 200K book (actually, she was horrified at the prospect of a 175K book, which was what I’d put down as the ancitipated wordcount), we cut the original synopsis about three pages from where it ended, and made the final three pages the first part of THE PRETENDER’S CROWN. Given how the story shifts, how it *had* to shift in order to tell TPC correctly, this has worked out perfectly. I’m very pleased with the cut where it happened, and think it’s made the pacing and break work very well.
None-the-less, reaching the end of the original synopsis feels like a big damned deal to me.
I’m taking the rest of the day off.