Apologies for the long gap between these. I swear I’ve been working on the novel (well, off and on), but with a new gig and a schedule shift my usual morning routine has been a bit disrupted 😅
In any case, the novel edits continue. I’m about two-thirds of the way through the second major round of edits. I know, slow pace, but a chapter or two a day (on good days) is about all I can handle right now. Still, I tell myself, if I have an edited novel by the end of the year, that’s fantastic. No deadlines.
And the book’s still growing, as I edit. It’s pushing 88,000 words atm, after starting out at around 79k. And I haven’t yet added the missing scenes that the critique group uncovered. So might still end up somewhere north of 90k, which is on the long end, I think, for a thriller of this type, but that’ll probably come down again if I sell it and it goes through the full editing process 🤞
Meanwhile, I needed something to submit to the critique group, so we’ve been working through my third novel, an urban fantasy where the main character is a lawyer working for a modern-day Titania and her Faerie Court. That one’s even shorter than the sci-fi book, so we’re already halfway through the first draft (!). It is a first draft, though, so there’s a lot of work to do on that one.
Reading that book again (with the group) has been…a bit of a trip. It was written long enough ago that the idea of using a camera (instead of your phone) to take pictures for evidence wasn’t strange, and it contains a character that I wanted to read as non-binary before I really knew any folks that identified as such (or had done any reading on their experiences). So I’m editing it as I post each section, re-working things on the fly to catch up to current events (and my current understanding).
Yet I realize I’m still in love with the book, and its characters, even after all this time. I’m glad the group’s been willing to dive into it with me (it being a very rough draft), because it’s given me hope that it, too, can be edited into a shape suitable for publication.
Who knows? With some luck (and a lot of elbow grease) I might finish the year with two novels ready to go. ✍️
