The End is Nigh...

The end of the first draft of Kricket's Song, that is!

Yes, yes, I know, I haven't posted in like three weeks. Maybe more. I'm going to make a blatantly obvious excuse here, and say that it's because I was focusing so much of my creative effort on Kricket's Song. And that's at least partly true. For those of you who haven't been watching the little progress gauge over there on the right side of the blog, it's been positively skyrocketing upward. The first draft is literally approaching the final stages!

I'm excited about it, if you couldn't tell. Creatively speaking, I've been eating, sleeping, drinking, and breathing Kricket's Song for much of the past seven months (seven months tomorrow!). It's been an absolute joy to work on, but I'm excited to get it done. I don't think it's going to require any major rewrites, and the flaws that I've identified already have solutions waiting to be implemented, for the most part. Of course, this is a noob talking, so I could be wrong. I'm not worried about THAT just yet.

The buildup for the final climax is happening now, and within the next two or three chapters, Kricket's crew will be starting the final mission of mind-blowing epic awesomeness. Or at least, I HOPE it will be that good. I'm still estimating about 90,000 total words, which leaves me about 15,000 to go. I can't see it going more than a few thousand over, all told. That total will come back down some during editing, no doubt.

Regardless, the end of this stage is in sight. Then it'll be time to start planning the next book while I give Kricket a break. Then I'll be editing Kricket and getting it ready to submit to agents. I feel a lot more confident about this manuscript than I ever did with The Serenity Solution. The story really came together well, and while I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't need some serious polishing, I believe it holds a great deal of promise for the not-too-distant future.

My goal is to have the first draft done before the end of the year, which shouldn't be a problem at this pace. I'd like to have it ready to go to beta readers by the end of the year. Then I could possibly have it out to agents before spring of next year. We'll see, so stay tuned!