Well, I’m back.
I had to shut down–here and on social media–because several 10k+ word days in a row, especially on a project others tried so hard to kill, takes up rather a lot of one’s energy. It’s been a while since I closed off every other avenue and focused all my engines on a single book; normally I work on two-three at a time to keep my brain’s tendency to eat itself in check.
In any case, the zero draft is done. I had reached the point of sincerely doubting I had another book in me, but was disproved in the most elemental of ways. The zero is done, done, done. Of course there’s a fight looming to keep it protected from well-meaning (or not so well-meaning) pettifogging, but the first and hardest step is accomplished. There’s a lot of bracket notes, it’s messy, and I have a couple pages of yet more notes needing to be incorporated in the pass which will turn it into a proper first draft instead of a zero–but it’s finished. It is recognizably a whole-ass book.
There is a period of time after finishing a zero when I am the only person in the world who knows. Usually it’s a short while before an email’s fired off to my writing partner with some version of “oops, I did it again…” Occasionally there’s tears. This time nearly an hour of sobbing–pure emotional release–struck me to the floor of the office before I could share the ?good? news. It wasn’t so much the book’s ending, which is right and bittersweet, but the relief of knowing I prevailed despite all the odds and forces arrayed against the entire bloody series. I have not truckled, nor will I through the rest of the process.
If it’s a swan song, well, it’s a good one. I can be proud.
Of course there’s Highlands War to finish the zero of, which is where my energies will mostly be spent for the next couple weeks until I start revising Chained Knight and Gamble. The former needs a release date–I’m looking at July now, or perhaps August–and the latter mostly needs brush-up, the editor says, before it’s into line edits and the rest of the process. Plus, said editor wants another Ymre, so the process of building that story inside my head needs to begin now; around June-ish I can put it in a working slot on the docket. We’re coming up on submission deadlines and it appears trad wants to leave money on the table, so the Cain’s Wife trilogy will probably be the next serial (I think Danny Valentine fans will like it) and House of the Fan will have to go on the compost heap for a while. I just don’t have the spoons for that kind of epic fantasy without a publisher handling some of the heavy lifting.
Ah well. By the end of this month I’ll have a somewhat final plan for the rest of the year and through 2025. We’re in the very last loops of the holding pattern. Oh, and it’s a new month so the Monthly Sales page has been updated. (Remember to check the dates!)
I honestly feared I could not finish this particular series, but stubbornness (plus the support of beta readers, writing partner, and family) won. I do not have to mourn a slaughtered work; instead I can armour up for the rest of the campaign. No rest for the weary or the wicked, my reward for success is more work, and all that. I’m content to have it so, though I could wish this project had not been so bloody difficult. Anyway, now I am at something resembling peace, plus I have an actual-factual titanium spork on my desk, a gift from a very good Pocket Friend to fend off haters with.
I’ve fought with far less durable weapons. Everything’s going to be fine.