the last revision: a life for keeps

Hey, you guys! How ARE you? What have you been doing? Is life good?

So sorry about the silence lately. Sometimes you just have to duck your head down and work, rather than just talking about the work. Sometimes you have to get off Pinterest and Tumblr, and neglect your Sims, and leave your laundry unfolded and floors unswept (really folks, this house needs some attention!), and just work. So for the past three months (in between trips to England, Assateague Island, and Ohio, of course, lol!) that is what I’ve been doing.

And last night I FINALLY finished my last revision!!!

This is weird. Let me tell you how this is weird. There will still be copy-edits likely, fine-tuning of details, fixing clumsy sentences or whatever, but the story? It’s done. Like DONE. And that’s so WEIRD, lol! Especially having written six drafts of this thing, several of which included major revisions that changed characters and history and events. It’s weird to think there won’t be any more changes. That this story, this lifetime that I’ve written for this set of characters, is not going to change anymore from here. This life that I’ve written them – it’s permanent!

I’m not sure I know how to feel about that, lol!

On the one hand, happy. Two and a half years worth of work, and I’m happy with the story I’ve given them. On the other hand though, I doubt it, of course. It’s too early not to doubt it, I suppose. I think it’ll probably sink in later, especially if my readers end up liking it. But there are doubts still. Is it the best story they could have had? Did I include all the right scenes? Is it missing anything?

Of course it’s a possibility that my beta readers could write back and say, OMG THIS IS A DISASTER!!! lol!

I have a feeling they won’t though.

And that means something, because dude, nobody nitpicks my stories like I do!

So draft 6 was one of the biggest and most challenging revisions I’ve done on this book. Jodie’s story was pretty solid to start, but both Amelia and Drew’s stories got a complete overhaul. They weren’t changed so much this time around as they were considerably deepened. The book ended up growing by about 12,000 words since its last draft, and because a good deal of words were cut as well, I’d be willing to bet I wrote even more than that in this last draft. It topped off at 88,000 words, 25 chapters, and 366 pages.

And I’m happy with it, as far as the story goes. Story revisions are the hard part – copy-edits are easy. Entering grammar and punctuation fixes (though boring) is easy. It’s smooth sailing from here.

*big exhale*

Let’s move forward with gusto then, shall we? Barring the possibility that all of my beta readers write back to say that OMG THIS BOOK IS A DISASTER!!!!11!, then these dates should hold. 😉

– The preview series starts June 18th! (The first 5 chapters online, extras, teasers, character profiles and such, assorted “making of” posts, and I should have some eARCs available that week too.)
– Ebook release June 29th!
– Paperback release August 14th!

Happy times! 😀