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i finished it!
I went off this afternoon to write and meet up with a friend, and accomplished some 3750 words before our meeting. I was pretty sure I’d broken through the Novelist’s Event Horizon, and thought maybe if I went back to write a little more, I could finish MAGIC & MANNERS sometime tomorrow. So I went back and blew through 2000 words in an hour (that’s about my top speed), said on Twitter that I thought I might keep going, wrote another two sentences, and was like “no wait i’m done!”
I stared at a minute and concluded I was, in fact, satisfied with that, and now MAGIC & MANNERS, which I started about five years ago, is finished! At least in rough draft.
The truth is that I’m not usually all that “yay!” about finishing a book anymore, but in this case I actually feel quite yay! Not sure why, but it’s a lovely feeling!
The next month is going to be full. of. revisions. MAGIC & MANNERS, a straight-up Regency, an Old Races short story, and my nephew’s book all need revision. Between revising I’m going to be writing the detailed synopsis for the second Regency and for REDEEMER, which I had hoped would be my March writing project but which is realistically going to be the April-May project.
In the meantime, MAGIC & MANNERS will be being edited, revised to editorial specifications, given a cover, copy-edited, laid out, made into e-book files, and released in its full shiny format to its patrons, and then relatively soon thereafter to the world.
Whew!
ytd wordcount: 76,100
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thud!
Five weeks and ninety thousand words later, DEMON HUNTS is *done*.
I was very, very determined to finish it today. 5700 word day, and I was writing scenelets all over the damned place hoping they’d add up to something I could stitch together and make the end of the book. They did. :)
Buuuunches of work to go back and do to actually make the whole thing hang together smoothly, but I sent the book to one of my early readers yesterday before it was done and in a fit of enthusiasm he read it and there were many things that surprised him and pleased him and made him think. So I … was very relieved to hear that. :) (And I can’t wait to see what he thinks of the very end, which I love.)
I…have to revise this, obviously, before I turn it in (goal: delivery next Friday. Or before, if possible. That’d be nice. But Friday next is plenty soon enough.). I’m expecting a revision letter on TRUTHSEEKER any minute now. And I have to revise “Cairn Dancer”, which I’ve been failing to do for like two months now. So that will probably take up the rest of May.
But basically, guys, I’m officially out from behind the 8-ball. My next book isn’t due til the end of October. I have a short story due in November. So that’s what, 95K between now and then. Shit, I just wrote that much in the past five weeks.
I’m going to go collapse in relief now, I think.
ytd wordcount: 173,400
miles to Minas Tirith: 230 -
liveblogging the final chapter
I have done jack all today on this book. So I’m now going behind the cut tag and live-blogging the writing of the last chapter.
I have no idea what this will entail. Wordcounts, I guess.
For something more interesting, go read today’s interview with me over at Bitten By Books. There are 5 PRETENDER’S CROWN ARCs in the running for commentors, so go forth and participate. :)
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I AM DONE!
I have just wrapped up CAULDRON BORNE (or whatever it’s going to be called) at an unusually short 103,000 words. This is the first time I’ve ever had a book come in short (the Walker Papers are supposed to be 110K), but it’ll no doubt grow a bit in revisions, and perhaps it coming in a little short makes up for PRETENDER’S CROWN being 180K. :)
This means I am *officially* done with the last four years of Insane Writing Schedule. My next book is not due until JUNE 2009. I am DONE DONE DONE DONE *DONE*.
…and you should see my list of potential projects. o.o
No. *No*. I have a few revisions to do to CB before I turn it in. I need to write the proposal for THE IMPERATOR’S HEIR over the next couple of weeks. But before I do ANYTHING ELSE I am going to read all the books on my TBR shelf. And I am going to SWIM. I have been watching Olympic swimmers. I lust in my heart for their form. I shall swim and swim and look like them when I am in the water. It will be lovely. Did I mention that I will READ? And I will go to MeCon and to London and I will READ, and I will eventually write the sixth Chance script, but I am going to READ. And writhe around in NOT WRITING.
It will be *good*.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
ZOMG. Done. Can’t believe it! ZOMG!
SQUEEEEE!
ytd wordcount: 308,600