final draft!

This has been many years in the making, but I can finally say that I am on my final draft of my first book, To Kill the Goddess.

I can't believe I just wrote that!

Aside from three new chapters that I'm placing at the beginning, this final draft is more of a tuneup than anything else. I'm sure that there will be a little bit of reworking involved but I'm not expecting to spend anywhere as near as much time on this draft as I have on previous drafts. My target is to have this final draft complete by late spring or early summer 09. That may be a bit aggressive, especially given what my work schedule is going to look like, but that's my goal and I am sticking to it!

So what happens after that? I'm not entirely sure. I do plan on beginning the process of shopping it around to publishers but I'm not entirely convinced that's the direction I want to take this. I've seen how some of my peers have been treated by the publishing industry and I haven't been impressed. My other option would be self-publishing via on-demand printing and e-books, but that is an option it's only in its infancy at this point.

So, what to do? What to do?

What I will do is start in on the third draft of book 2, which is tentatively titled The Siege of Ederea. Completion of that is probably another year and a half out. After that, it's on to the prequel book, The Others War, and then the fourth and final book in the Series, The Portal of Za'Duun.

Ack!

PS. Yes, Za'Duun is a blatant ripoff of Za'Ha'Dun, but as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

TKTG Update: Part one is done!

I finally finished the final draft of the first five chapters of To Kill the Goddess. Yay me!

My goal is to complete this final draft by late spring or early summer. I don't really know what will happen after that. I do plan on handing out this final draft to proofreaders and I do expect to get some comments back from that. So, technically, what I'm working on it right now isn't the FINAL final draft, but I do believe that this will be the last draft of major revisions.

One question I've been wrestling with a lot is what to do when I'm done. Alternative means of independent publishing look more attractive all the time but I do expect to pursue a traditional publisher. At least I'm going to start out that way. We will see what happens on that front. The real bummer about that is that I can't post any of my work without running into potential copyright/publication issues. Bleh.