THE END. Not of the blog, although I'm sure some of you are bored to bits with my drivel. Not of my liver, although I would deserve it if that abused organ gave up the ghost and moved to Tahiti. But I just finished the latest draft of Malcolm and Amelia's story! Cue fireworks! Pop the champagne! Throw glitter all over everything!
Or, perhaps, celebrate by sleeping immediately, which is what I intend to do. I feel pretty good about where the book is at right now, although I still need to do, at a minimum, and couple of proofreading/copyediting passes and several hours' worth of research on minor points like what dresses/breeches/etc were in style in 1812, figuring out the specific dates everything occurs on for continuity purposes, and all that jazz. At a maximum, I may need to write a couple more scenes and do some editing for larger story issues, but nothing like what I just went through.
So I finished approximately three minutes ago, after spending alllll daaaaay on it. I woke up around 10:15, which was way earlier than I had any right to be up, feeling way better than I deserved (although still not perfect -- it would have been impossible to feel perfect after the night I had). I showered, threw on some clothes, packed up my laptop, and took a cab to Adit's neighborhood, since I was forced to abandon my car there last night and needed to pick it up. But I grabbed breakfast first at Morning Due, where I had some scrambled eggs and worked for an hour or so while attempting to rejuvenate myself. Then I came home and slogged all afternoon, took a break to grab a burger with Terry, and continued to slog all night. I had to take a nap at nine, which was ill-advised, but it let me power through the last couple of hours, which was key.
The reason for my hard and brutal slog is not just that I'm behind and want to get the book out. It's that I had contacted a freelance editor of excellent repute last week to get onto her schedule for Ellie and Nick's book in a few months, since I've been thinking that a great editor would be a better investment than just about anything else. I don't need a lot of help with proofreading, as long as I'm not drunk when I do it, but I can still keep growing as a writer, and one of the only reasons I would sign a traditional deal right now is for the editorial assistance. But my agent recommended a great editor who has been in the industry for years, and she not only can get me a slot for Ellie's book, but said that she was willing to do a rush read on Amelia's book and give me feedback this week *if* I could give her the manuscript today. She read the first four chapters as a test last week and loved what she saw so far, but also made some excellent suggestions, all of which I agreed with, so I feel really good about what she can do to help me polish this thing and get it out the door, so that I will never ever have to read or look at it again.
So that's done. And that's all I did today, so there's nothing else to share. Tomorrow I get a brief reprieve from the manuscript while she reads it, which I will spend working out with Alyssa and then writing three guest blogs and taking care of a bunch of business stuff, including figuring out the process of staring my LLC -- fun times. Speaking of guest blogs, another one just went up on a romance site (linked from the press area of sararamsey.com, as usual) -- since I know several of you read the guest blogs, I'll keep enabling you to stalk me as painlessly and effectively as possible. And now, I really really must sleep, since I have to get up in approximately seven hours if I'm going to make it to Palo Alto to train. Goodnight!
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