The most unbelievable and amazing thing happened tonight. The Shadows of the Sun edit pass is complete, and one day BEFORE the revised deadline. This has been a crazy year so far. Even with giving myself an additional 15 days, some days it seemed like I’d never reach the last page.
All that remains is to do a copyedit pass, one more light crit pass to make sure I haven’t broken anything big, and then Shadows will start making the rounds…I hope before December of this year. Guess I better get cracking on that submission package, eh?
My fears of a 150k behemoth did not come to pass. I kept an eye out for opportunities to cut, and so even with the added scenes, I increased the count by only 3,000 words. At 135k, it’s large for what people are looking for, I know, but I hope the story balances that out. And maybe, if not, it’ll balance enough so an editor or agent is willing to help me find the 10k to cull. At this point, I’ve removed anything that I thought unnecessary and everything that I thought weakened the novel (amazing how many shortcuts I’d taken :p). That leaves only removing something that strengthens Shadows but might not be 100% crucial. Sigh. But that’s a decision I don’t plan to make unless I have to.
While I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to a very real sense of relief, and confidence that the story is much stronger than it was before, part of me is sad to reach this step. There’s still work to be done, but I’m expecting it to be the fiddling type rather than anything massive. Then a project that has been with me in one form or another since 1988 will be out of my hands and launched onto the world. I don’t know if I’ll ever revisit Kyrnie’s world, but I do know that I’ll never forget my sojourn here and just hope that others feel the same way assuming they get the chance to explore.
Stats:
Edited Today: 2,829 words
50 Chapters complete – 102% of the novel
-15 Chapters remain (yes, I SERIOUSLY rechaptered in this pass.)
-3,016 Remaining word count
135,209 Current Total
135,209 Predicted Total
It’s wonderful news! What a huge achievement! Well done! 🙂
Whoo hoo! Congratulations!
Yay! Well done you.
Take a well earned breather. 🙂
It’s a wonderful feeling. I have only two goals this year: Get Shadows out and send out 5 new short stories. I can’t tell you how nerve-wracking it’s been to be approaching half way through the year without passing any milestones on that first goal :).
But a break? Are you kidding? ;). Now’s the time to catch up on everything I let slip to focus on this :D.
Just dropping by to wish you a Happy Birthday. Hope you have a great day! Oh, and congrats on finishing the edit pass.
Thanks on both. I just got back from BayCon, so am wiped, but happy.