The First Draft of Book II Is Finished!

It took me three years to write the first book in the Victoria da Vinci trilogy, Dicing Time for Gladness (although to be fair working on that project was not my number-one priority for much of that time). I mention this now because as of just a few minutes ago, I NOW HAVE A FINISHED FIRST DRAFT OF BOOK II. I don't bust out the obnoxious all-caps maneuver very often, but I'm feeling exultant.

As I discussed in this blog post, writing a sequel poses special challenges. On the other hand, however, as I explained in the same post, it can be easier than starting with a blank piece of paper if your over-arching story is already well mapped out. I severely doubt that I could have written this story from scratch in 12 months.

There is still a lot of work to do: editing, proofreading and the usual endless massive revisions. No manuscript is ever truly finished; you just get to a point where you feel compelled to abandon it. I once had a writing coach who said it was time to quit re-writing when you find yourself adding and then subtracting the same comma over and over again.

But I'll worry about that later. For the moment I am celebrating with a toast. The first draft came out to 240 pages and 51,718 words, almost exactly the same as Book I, so I expect it to swell up by about the same amount (another 20-30 pages) by the time I'm done fleshing out details in places where I skimmed on the first pass.

When Dorothy Parker was asked to name the two most beautiful words in the English language, she quipped that she was partial to "cheque" and "enclosed." If I had to choose three, I think that "finished first draft" might be my picks.