Invictus Update: Argh, So Close

Nope, not quite finished with Invictus, which on the one hand is soooo annoying, but I’m soooo close.

Three basic comments about this manuscript:

A) I’m sure you’ll all be totally astonished to hear that it’s gone longer than my estimated maximum. I just passed 170,000 words this morning. My NEW estimate is SURELY not more than 175,000 words and maybe actually less. I honestly have ONE chapter to finish, ONE chapter to smooth out, and ONE chapter (a short one) to write. That’s it! I’m really sure this time!

B) I’ve gotten the “flow” back, which is great! Took about, what, seven weeks, but after gritting my teeth through a heck of a lot of words, I’m finally zipping right along and enjoying this last little bit. We are, needless to say, past the exciting climax and into the part where everyone works out their relationships and get set to move into the future. Although parts of the climax surprised me quite a bit and were therefore fun to write. Those parts may turn out not to flow smoothly out of previous bits, or may make previous bits unnecessary, so that’s going to be something to address early in the revision process. I can see that I’m going to start revising not at the beginning (I have been OVER and OVER that part), but almost smack dab in the middle.

You know, if you’d said at the beginning of this year, “I see that you have 90,000 words sitting here, but I don’t think that means you’re 2/3 of the way through this book — more like 1/2, I bet,” I … guess I would have found that plausible, actually. But I sure did not expect this draft to wind up quite this long. And of course it’s a bit annoying to think I’m probably going to wind up cutting it back pretty hard, but here we are, all part of the process.

C) The three-week break between semesters is over and boom! now that I have flow back, I’m inconveniently going to have less time to work on this manuscript. So I’m betting it will take a good week to actually finish rather than two or three days. Especially because I’m carrying puppies in and out and in and out, and feeding them, making sure to pick up Seriously Plump Boy Three so he can’t push the others out of the way and get far more than his share. And all that leads to sitting around watching the puppies. At this point they sometimes spend a bit of time scampering around in the living room, where I can pretend I’m looking at my laptop. Spoiler: when they’re out, I’m really looking at the puppies.

I just figured out that, at birth, Tiny Boy Four was 56% as big as Seriously Plump Boy Three. He is now 88% as big. So, basically, even Somewhat Smallish is starting to wear off as a nickname.

Anyway, by NEXT week, I should be typing THE END for Invictus, after which I will set it aside for a good long while and most likely turn promptly to Tasmakat. I just worked out something neat I should do toward the beginning. I mean, along with many, many neat things along the way from front to back.

I already have the cover for Tasmakat, by the way. Just the ebook so far because I have no clue what the eventual page count will be. I’m not sharing it because I feel like it’s bad luck to post the cover before I have a complete draft. But! I do plan to put Tasmakat up for preorder the very moment I have a complete draft, before I even start revisions. It will be the first book I have ever put up for preorder that far in advance, and I’ll be really keen on seeing how many preorders it accumulates. A lot, I hope.

I guess I should also think about getting a cover for Invictus. Wow. That feels like quite a step. That feels like a complete draft is nearly in my hand.

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