After an incredibly long haul, I have reached the end of the road with Shadows of the Sun. Or rather, I’ve reached the turn where the book can take off on its own.

All that remains is a spell-check run and the submission package (no easy feat, but different from editing the whole), and Shadows will be out looking for an agent willing to shepherd it through publication to bookstore shelves.

The final word count is 134,239, so still rounded to 135k despite my efforts. It turned out that, as I’d feared, I had already done pretty much all the big cutting in the previous pass, leaving only bits and pieces here or there unless I want to remove one of the threads that make up the plot, a drastic cut which I will do if necessary, but maybe the story can stand on its own despite the length. I started at 135,740, so cut more than 1000 words anyway.

And the secondary meaning of this success? I can now focus on NaNo with a whole heart and no guilt…of course I have just one day to finalize my outline, which needs a ton of work. I should get to sleep :p.