Hi, squiders! We lumped all the summer camps together in a three week time period because of Reasons and it is not our finest hour.
BUT
I finally finished my draft of Book 1!
Hold on, I’m going to scroll back through and see when I actually started. It looks like I “started” in Feb 2022, which is at least when I dug up the draft and re-read it. And then I didn’t touch it again until Nov 2022, when I re-read it and went over beta comments from the last time it went through the critique marathon, and then I spent Nov-Feb doing all the prep work for the revision (I try to do the majority of the work before I start the revision, so I have clear goals in mind and know exactly what to change).
And I started the actual revision in Feb 2023.
So. 15 months. A bit long, honestly, but I think I’ve talked before about the amount of emotional baggage this particular story always brings along with it. I’ve been working on it on and off for twenty years. It is my magnum opus. Or at least the story I care most about.
(I did take April 2023 off to write a novella, July 2023 off for a trip, and just last month for another trip, so I guess it’s really like a year. Ah well.)
This is the third or fourth time I’ve rewritten it, and I feel like, this time, we’re actually getting somewhere. Almost the whole book has been run through various critique marathons (we’re on Chapter 26 there) where in general the feedback has been positive, and my critique group has also liked it (they’re through Chapter 27. There’s 32 chapters total).
I mean, there’s still changes to be made. I will run the ending through the marathon and my in-person group and make changes as necessary. But I’m also going to put together submission materials and hope that, finally, the story is ready to go out into the world.
Scary! But exciting.
Part of me wants to jump right back in and move on to Book 2 (the oldest existent draft, and hence needing the most work), but logically that makes no sense. No reason to spend a ton of time on sequels until Book 1 goes somewhere.
(The trilogy timeline goes something like:
2004-2005: First draft of Book 1
2006: First draft of Book 2 (abandoned about 20K in, story was broken)
2009-2010: Second draft of Book 1
2011-2012: First full draft of Book 2
2014-2015: First draft of Book 3
2017-2018: Third draft of Book 1
2023-2024: Fourth draft of Book 1)
But yay! It is complete! Confetti and celebrations!
So, what now? Well, submission materials. I’d like to get those done while I’m still actively thinking about the story.
Then maybe a month or two off to work on other things (new short stories?) while I start submitting.
Next on the revision slate is Rings Among the Stars, which is a scifi horror novella.
With all the Nano drama I don’t think I will be participating this year (and unless they get their act together, probably never again) but I may do a new project around that time period.
Hope you’re having a productive week as well!
