Bird book is done

Just now, I've sent the 88k polished first draft of the Bird book to my editor and a number of betas who'll be able to help me with some details. So,yeah, it's done. After nearly abandoning it three or four times, in the end I'm glad I didn't. I'm hoping it'll all come together in January and we'll look at a release date either in March or August.

I'm currently in that dazed zone where I can't quite believe it's done. The book's been with me in one shape or other from at least March 2011 onwards. Since then, I've changed jobs several times. I started it when we'd just moved into the house. In the meantime, I've written about ten other books and co-written about a dozen--which should reveal just how scared I've been to mess this up.

Now, I'm planning to grab breakfast, then go see a movie (current Hobbit part) and then clean up my research books and papers. There's outlines and notes I don't need anymore, and I don't believe there will be literary historians who'll terribly mind as I throw out all the paperwork I've amassed over those years. I'm also going to seriously triage my research books, only keeping a few of them, namely the ones I might read again. (My house is getting too small for all these books.)

Tomorrow, I'll start on finishing Suckerpunch, so I'll be re-reading Counterpunch and get all my boxing research books/materials into line. There's also other stuff I have to do (taxes, etc), so I'll be busy for the rest of the year. Ideally, I'll wrap Suckerpunch by end-January, and I'm not planning any further than that at the moment.

Whew. Done.