The Antepenultimate Draft

I haven't blogged for a few days because I've been busy with the last chapter of Across Two Universes. (I did start a Science of Science Fiction post, but I didn't finish it. Now that the news item is a few days old, I wonder if it's still worth posting.) Anyway, late last night, I finished what I hope will be the antepenultimate, or next-to-next-to-last, draft. It weighs in at 280 pages and 88,000 words. Considering most of my previous novels have been well over 100,000, I'm pleased this one is relatively short--and hopefully, much stronger than previous drafts of this novel.


I'm relieved it's done, especially since I completed it a few days ahead of my birthday (which was one of my New Year's goals), but it's still not ready for submission. I'm going to set it aside for about a month, then print it out and read it through. I'm sure I'll have to tweak some things for consistency before I send it out to reviewers. Then I'll need to revise it at least one more time before it goes out to agents. But at least there's an end in sight. In the meantime, I'm sure I'll come up with plenty of other things to do on my lunch hour. Hopefully I can start planning a new story too.