The Draft of MISTRESS OF THE AGES Is Done!

As the title declared, the draft manuscript of MISTRESS OF THE AGES is finished! I just typed “The End” this afternoon after wrestling the last chapter to the ground.

While it still has a lot of rough edges that need to be ground off and polished, I’m quite happy overall with the way the story has come out, especially since it has to sort of “plug in” to the events that happen in the original book I read.

For those of you who are clamoring about a release date, I still can’t/won’t give you one, just because I’m a big meanie. However, having said that, I can tell you that it will likely take me about a week to do my own revisions before kicking it to the first set of editors, who typically take the most time because they have to deal with my draft writing, which isn’t pretty. Then, after I’ve finished those revisions, it goes to another set of editors, who spray more red ink on it. After I’m done with *those* revisions, it goes out to a group of beta readers, who typically have a week to read and provide me feedback. Once those revisions are done (those are typically just typos and other minor bloopers), I’ll have become thoroughly sick of the project and will gladly hit the publish button just to be rid of it!

So, a semi-realistic estimate of when it’ll go out the door is something on the order of six to eight weeks from now. But if it takes longer than that, I get to blame someone else because they’ve got the manuscript, not me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, right?

Anyway, I hope you’ll think it was worth the wait, and I’ll keep you posted as it percolates through the chain.

Oh, and by the way: I’m having a devil of a time coming up with ideas for the cover! Anyone have any bright ideas? If I pick your idea, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of the books or give in to some other reasonable (to me, not you!) request.

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