jemck: rune logo from The Thief's Gamble (Default)
posted by [personal profile] jemck at 12:20pm on 16/12/2007
But first things first, I did it! I finished reviewing the final chapter of Straws in the Wind, and checking it against test readers' notes, at a quarter to midnight on Friday night. Thank goodness for the laser printer chucking out a fair copy in short order. I hate to think what time I'd have got to bed if I'd still been working with the old desk-jet. So, hard copy went in the post on Saturday morning, guaranteed delivery monday am. So I have met my deadline. Yey.

How do I feel about the book? Pleased, overall. Mind you, the rewrites/revisions saw a lot more cuts and changes than I've made at this stage with my last few books. Possibly because of having a goodly break since I was writing Eastern Tide. More probably because this is a new series and I'm working with multiple third-person viewpoints which is a new thing for me. I'm also aiming for pace and action, by way of a contrast to the slightly slower and more reflective tone of the Aldabreshin Compass. Not that there's anything wrong with slower and more reflective, but as when I moved from the Tales of Einarinn to the Compass, I want to get well away from any possibility of rewriting the series I've just wound up.

Mostly I'm keen to see what the chaps at Solaris make of it, so I can start planning for Book 2. In particular, this series sees mental magic (known as Artifice) coming to the fore and aspects of that which I hadn't fully appreciated at the planning stage have been coming into sharper and sharper focus as I've written. Interesting...

Oh and thank goodness for test readers. Whose comments have definitely improved things, in a couple of major ways, and ensuring I tighten up a good few minor points. Notably, a chap who is forced to strip because [CENSORED], does now put his clothes back on before resuming his journey. Always a good idea, I feel.

Other than that, I haven't had a lot of time to reflect on it. As soon as the package was in the post, I had to spend the rest of Saturday making major inroads into the Christmas shopping. Hence the lack of a post yesterday As I say, celebrating Christmas in early January like the Greeks etc, would suit me far better just at the moment. But posting dates are looming and there's still a lot to do, so today I shall be writing cards and wrapping and heading into town again tomorrow. With luck, if I get enough done today, I shan't wake up at 5 am with the To Do list scrolling through my brain as I did this morning. Very tedious.

Then there's the ominous amount of housework to do. Which has been largely ignored, on the assumption that husband would be taking some time off coming this week to help out, what with us both having met our deadlines. Only he had last week off work on account of the knee (healing nicely, thanks for asking). Stuff to do with The Mega-Project has come up that means he needs to go into work Tues/Weds/Thurs. So, argh, really.

Next year's deadline is November. Phew. This will not be happening again.

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