In which I return to a normal life...

...or as normal a life as mine ever is.

That's right. The rumors are true: I've finished the final major revision of Blade's Edge.

I FINISHED THE FINAL MAJOR REVISION OF BLADE'S EDGE!!!

Ahem.

I might be a little bit excited about that.

This whole thing has been a crazy ride. Of course, it's not actually over. Right now the manuscript is in the hands of my awesome beta-readers - people who have volunteered their time to read the book before it's pretty and tell me all the things that I failed to do properly.

Like "Gee, Virginia it sure is nifty that your characters can all do ____ is a shame you never explain how that works."

Or, "Gosh, I really enjoyed __insert character name here__ too bad you forgot about him entirely at the end of the book."

In truth, this final revision was about fixing all of those types of problems (along with a bunch of other changes) so hopefully none of that happens, but that's the kind of thing they're looking for among other things. Big picture issues. So right now I'm enjoying some blissful time away from the manuscript while it rests in their hands. I'll get it back on November 1st and get it to my copyeditor by the 5th after taking care of whatever my beta readers find that needs fixing.

So, of course I spent the whole day getting nothing productive done aside from a few work related e-mails. I would feel guilty, but, until yesterday I hadn't taken a full day off since September 8th (no not even on weekends) so I'm going to go ahead and allow it.

You guys know how much I like stats, so here are some stats for the Blade's Edge final revision:

# of words at the end of draft 2 (the one available on Jukepop) = 99,531

# of words at the start of draft 3 = 80,347

# of words at the end of draft 3 (final draft) = 105,443

# of days spent on draft 3 = 27

# of hours spent on draft 3 = at least 270 but possibly quite a few more...

Amount of joy at being done with the final major revision of Blade's Edge = immeasurable

Yeah. It's a bad mastercard commercial. I went there.

Anyway, it doesn't really feel real, this whole being done with the final major revision of a novel business. I keep saying "major revision" because there is still work to be done on the manuscript. It will require fixes when it comes back from my beta readers. It will require fixes when my copy editor and I go through it. It will probably require some teeny tiny fixes even after that. The goal is for it to need as few fixes as possible by the time it goes to print... here's hoping.

To celebrate yesterday my husband and I hung out a bunch, made some food, spent time with friends, and Artemis and I went for a glorious fall walk in the woods. So here's a picture of that. I'm going to go read or something... maybe even go the climbing gym. BECAUSE I CAN.

:-)