Milestone

Nearly 15 months after I finished writing the first draft of Shadows of the Knight, I have finally completed my first full edit of the novel! My editing was slowed considerably after I changed jobs back in February and found my available time evaporate but I managed to gain momentum in recent weeks to complete the first round. The novel currently weighs in at 252,180 words and printed out at 409 pages in its current format (it would kill considerably more trees to print once I switch it over to manuscript format). It is a major thrill to know that if someone picked up the draft right now, it would be fairly coherent and hopefully somewhat entertaining.

My next phase should be much shorter in duration. I plan on visiting a hundred or so notes that I've jotted down over the last 15 months. Some of the notes are fledgling ideas of additional plot elements to tighten the fabric of the novel. Some are just notes to check to see if a previous idea made it into text or never left the gray matter. Some will be resolved in minutes with little impact to the draft while a few might add a handful of new paragraphs to the novel. I won't kid myself and set a specific date to complete this phase but it should certainly be refreshingly quicker than the first tedious edit.

I am hoping after the second phase is finished, I can lock myself away to do a quick read for editing and then finally release Shadows of the Knight for its first test run with a select few personal critics. As always, I will be fighting the urge to pen the remaining four books of the Vampire Chess saga before completing the work necessary to get the first one published.