On Friday evening, I finished the first draft of my novel, “Killing the Immortals.” It’s just under 80,000 words, written in exactly six weeks. That’s a hell of a lot faster than I had planned, which was to (hopefully) wrap up the draft around April, but there was no real pressure to do that. I expected to have a second draft done around the end of May, have it out to beta readers in mid June, then get a final draft completed around August for a potential winter release.
Now, where are we? Well, right now, I’m writing a short story while working on hiring an editor. After that, I’ll work on my first round of edits. The editor and beta readers (If you’re one of them, I owe you a beer, or I’ll make sure you win the next Powerball) will get the story in March. I hope to have those comments back by late March/April, so I can start on my final round of edits and have a finished manuscript in May.
Of course, that’s if I don’t have to make some major changes. If I’m told my story makes no sense, or one of the characters needs to be nuked off the face of the Earth or something, that could set things back a teensy bit. Tough to say how much, but I know some setback is possible. The goal is to have this book published and up on the Kindle store by the end of August, so that’s when all you non-beta reader types can expect to see it all, barring my draft having holes the size of Lake Michigan in it. If it makes sense to do so, I’ll hopefully participate in the Decatur Book Festival and introduce lots of people to my story then.
In the meantime, I’ll probably offer some teasers. Maybe some excerpts. Maybe a prologue or something, particularly as the release date approaches. And, of course, I’ll have random weekly musings on writing too. The biggest hurdle is complete, but there’s a lot more to do before I can let the rest of you into this little world I’ve created. Hopefully, the wait will be worth it.
Leave a Reply