There's a reason it's been over a month since I posted a blog entry: I've been head-down on The Winds of Heaven and Earth, shaping and redrafting and trying to get the thing to my editor Rebecca Dickson.
This afternoon, I shipped it. My mid-June target slipped, but not by too much in the novelist world: only about two weeks or so. I'm ecstatic. There's still a lot of work to be done as the Beckster and I cycle through revisions; but a big milestone has been passed.
It was hard. Really hard. Not as physically hard as training for and running a marathon, but it took a hellava lot longer. I started WHE in 2007, picked it up and dropped it a few times, and really ramped up in earnest in February of this year, where I expanded the core 30,000 words into a full-length manuscript that came in at 163,000 words. a half-million word trilogy is staring me in the face, but I couldn't be happier: the elephant is one-third eaten already.
I had braced myself for a range of emotions, from postpartum depression to table-dancing, but in the end it was simply a mouse-click and a stretch, and a feeling of deep satisfaction.
There's something for all those needing inspiration out there, in this milestone. I'm not a full-time writer. I have day job that takes me away from home for 13 hours each day, and I work long days and sometimes evening and the occasional weekend, and am on-call for issue resolution 24/7 x 365. On weekends in the summer I certify wannabe scuba divers. I steal writing time on the train, in the evenings, on weekends--where ever I can.
If I can do this, anyone can.
What's next on my plate? I'm starting in on the second volume, The Dark Paths of the World, as I wait for Rebecca's spankings and nail-pulling.
There's still a lot of the elephant left to eat, Peeps.
