This is what Frodo must have felt like . . .

So, the final lap continues to unroll . . . over and over again. Each time you think you've reached the end, and the credits are about to roll . . . another scene!

I've learned so much throughout this process, one important thing I keep telling myself is that, although this first book might just barely make Not Too Horrible . . . I should get better as I go . . . right . . . ? . . . RIGHT??

So, one of the big lessons I learned most recently was to be very careful with the sentiment "I finished my book!" . . . people like wives and mothers will tend to misunderstand this sentiment almost as much as I did . . . Even though I only meant "finished the first draft" . . . it SOUNDS so final! . . . It's not.

One of the many great pieces of advice I've heard over the years, and something I've had to learn from one artistic endeavor to the next, is that any piece of art is never finished, only abandoned. I later learned, of course, that many folks attribute Leonardo Da Vinci with this quote, although Princeton University begs to differ. Anyway, whoever said it first, it's totally true. There is ALWAYS something you want to change, or tweak, or add . . . but you never have all the time in the world, especially if you are working on a deadline for a publisher . . . And so, in effect, what you are getting when you read any book is the high point (one would hope) of the ebb and flow of a writer's efforts, frozen in time.

That was one thing I learned. Another, from author friends I have been lucky enough to find, is that outside of IP fiction (writing for specific worlds/universes/games), this has been a CRAZY short time to write a book! I mean, _I_ thought so . . . but what do I know? In effect, this has been moving so quickly that all the folks that were going to help me by reading my stuff and getting feedback to me have been unable to do so, because I'm cranking out chapters so fast . . . Even the editor for my publisher has been slammed by the avalanche of words . . . not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

Which is something I more experienced than learned from . . . not a lot of learning in this last bit, mostly coping . . . I feel, each time I delve into revision reading, like I'm drowning in my own words. I HOPE there's a coherent story here, but at this point, I literally can't see the forest for the trees. This is why, in the process I've developed, anyway, the outline is absolutely paramount. Because at this point its all I can do to focus on a chapter . . . and I have to trust, if the chapter does what the outline calls for it to do, that the blocks will all fit together in a reader's mind.

And so, as I count down the days to Friday, which is when THIS work of art (if I can use the term liberally), will be frozen in time forever. And at that point it's out of my hands, and then, probably even more harrowing, starts rolling downhill to where readers will eventually catch it, and then it's all theirs. Like it, hate it, find fault with it, accept it . . . my argument is in the words I've already written, so there's nothing more I can do. It's a very nerve-wracking proposition. WAY worse than the most stressful audition I've ever done, actually.

Anyway, back to work. I have just finished combing through the entire book changing every "ok" to an "okay" at the publisher's request. Thank God for the Find feature . . . but unfortunately, you can't just do 'Find and Replace' . . . do you have any idea how many words have the letters 'ok' in them? Well, I do. Roughly 60 per chapter, actually . . .

But that's done, so now I'm free to mow the lawn! Yippee!

Thanks for reading, and on the assumption that someone out there is interested, I'll keep you posted on how the next book goes as well . . . I'm supposed to be working on the outline of that one already, but I don't know how the middle book of the trilogy is going, or what's happening, or where it ends . . . the challenges never cease!

Thanks again, and see you on the other side!

G'night Middle of the Empty Desert!

~Craig