Status -- June 22, 2009

Still in rewrites.

July finish is unlikely, August finish is feasible. I am in the second to last section that needs rewritten with only a few thousand words left to be re-written. After this, the story is done and I will turn to clean up and editorial work. This will include a consistency pass (hair color, clothing, usage, spelling, etc.), then a character voice pass, then a trim-the-fat pass. Somewhere in there I will have 3-5 other writers read it and let me know what they think (pacing, story arcs, emotions, characters and such).

At this point, I am still sitting well over 100K, so I need to cut 20-25% of the current material. That will be painful, as that will cut into the meat, but this story needs a fast pace and it is my belief that it will sell faster if shorter.

I am also nearing the 1-year point for working on this project. My original estimate was for 6 months. It will end up at 13 or 14 at least, and I will not be shocked if it runs longer.

There are some lessons to be learned here which should make the next one 20-30% faster, but the voice of doubt is telling me I might have made more progress with a year of short stories.