Well, it is actually finished now, at least for the current moment. Manuscript: Alpha has been revised, printed, bound, and sent off to my four lovely, devoted, selfless alpha readers. 176,000 words, plus a glossary, and a crudely drawn map to guide their mental wanderings as they read.

Oh, and my novel has a title now, in case you couldn’t tell. I am pleased to finally reveal:

The Warden of Everfeld: Memento

Honestly, that’s the title I’ve been running with for months now, even though “Jaed and Aston” was it’s unofficial nickname. Nothing better came to me, so I stuck with it. What do you think?

Revising the draft took longer than I anticipated, as is the case with virtually everything I do in life. I put off coming to revise the final couple of chapters for a few days, I think because in the back of my mind I knew that the ending just didn’t feel right. It took me until 3am on Friday night/Saturday morning to fit the pieces where I wanted them, but they are set, the manuscripts have been printed and mailed…

…And I suddenly have a lot of free time. It is unreal how many hours I devoted to this thing, and it’s not even totally finished. I still have at least one more round of major revisions, sending it to beta readers, probably working with a professional editor, and preparing it all for publication to handle. I am already turning over revisions in my head that I want to make. But for the next 30-50 days, this project is in stasis.

That feels awesome – to know that I have reached a point in my novel where I can just wait, let it simmer, and then get some great (and hopefully positive) feedback from four trusted advisers.

Now I’m more motivated than ever to jump into the next project – just something to hold me over until it’s time to revise The Warden of Everfeld again… damn, I love writing that out!

Okay then, what to do, what to do…

• I’ll be writing all over my own copy of Manuscript: Alpha, I suppose.
• I’d sure like to write and post some of the 9 or so drafts I have in my WordPress account.
• And I just may submit a short story to an online litmag hosting a competition this fall. More details on that to come. In the meantime, go check out the litmag. Great stuff: Five on the Fifth.
• I’m also diving back into storyboarding for my world-building project. Warden of Everfeld: Memento  is the first of what I hope will be many stories in this universe that’s been mostly in my head for the last… 4 years? More? I forget. I need a solid name for this project. Something like The Wheel of Time  or Warhammer 40,000 to tie together all of these people and places I’ve created. Brainstorming that name is added to my to-do list now.

Three of my four alpha readers live outside of Maryland, so they should be receiving their manuscripts in the mail around today. I promised them that I would not bug them about giving me feedback for one full month – 30 days! After that, though, it’s fair game.

Hopefully they do not come to despise me over the next month or so…

Steve D