I finished my latest read through of Land of Sky and Blood over the weekend. That’s 561 pages, 163k words, all cleaned up. I still can’t believe it turned out that long. Now all I have to do is rewrite the opening chapter and I’ll be ready to hand it off.

At this point I’m desperate to give it to my beta readers. I thought I’d be cutting things left and right Edward Scissorhands style, but I think I ended up adding to the overall word count! I feel like Cillian Murphy in Sunshine when he’s staring out the spaceship at the sun. I just can’t look at the manuscript anymore. I’m all crispy-skinned and immolated over here and need some outside opinions.

My original goal was to be done by August 1st. I’m giving myself until the end of the week though. Either way, come a week from now, you better be seeing the words: “And it’s sent!” Then maybe I can finally relax.

Keeping the post short and sweet today so I can get back to it. I’ve already pulled myself out of one internet rabbit hole once I started reminiscing about Sunshine — seriously, before me typing that reference, I hadn’t even thought about that movie in like ten years — I can’t afford to fall down another one. That chapter’s not going to rewrite itself!