It Is Done

Great news! I finished the book over the weekend! 

It was a tremendous feeling of accomplishment as I relished writing the epilogue scene. And then there was the final sentence. It was unplanned, I didn't know I wanted it until it poured out of me into the keyboard. A perfect little period at the end of a long journey.

The word count came out to about 97,000 words. It took me from November 27th, 2007 to February 8th, 2009. It's actually short for a novel by most publishing standards today, but I'm fine with that for a couple of reasons. One, this book is merely the first act to a larger story. I plan on collecting all three books into a single volume once I'm all done. Two, this is the story I wanted to tell. For better or worse, I wrote this book for me. I like it, I think it's fun. Hopefully, others will like it but I know that when I put a book out there to the public that I'm opening myself up for criticism from people that don't care I'm a first-time novelist.

Anyway... what's next?

The manuscript is currently in the hands of a copy editor. I want to give a big thank you to Joe Crowe who has generously offered to edit the whole thing at no cost. Joe is a copy editor by profession, working for the Birmingham News newspaper. He is also the Senior Editor and humor columnist for RevolutionSF.com.

Joe will catch all my spelling and grammatical errors as well as let me know if anything needs re-working or clarification. When I get it back from him, I'll also read it for contradictions and errors.

Even with the manuscript out of my hands, I have been busy this week. I've been working hard trying to commission artwork for the cover. I have approached painters specializing in fantasy work and I have approached artists who work in comics. I have received a lot of interest, as you might imagine when you step into the world of freelancers. 

Three artists in particular that have expressed interest have me excited based on the quality of their work. I won't mention names yet, but if negotiations are successful I should have a very exciting announcement to make very soon. 

As that's going on, I will soon also complete my own interior illustration of the obligatory map that most fantasy novels seem to feature. And then I have to turn my mind toward things like the book's Dedication, Acknowledgments and all the little things like that.

The main thing that will delay the release of the book is the artwork. That will take the most time. Everything else should be done by the time we get that in hand.

Maybe it's time to set up a website and start taking all those advance orders that I know we'll get...