It is Finished

It is finished. Around 10:40 AM, yesterday, I wrote the last word of the last sentence of the sequel to Urban Mermaid. The working title is Syrena. Finally, it is finished. It has been a long, slow crawl and it has taken much longer than it should.

So, what’s next?

The first thing I’m going to do is go back and make some revisions to the Epilogue. (Yeah, I know. I just finished it yesterday.) There is some extraneous stuff in there which really does not advance the plot in any significant way.

Here’s a hint about the Epilogue. It will solve a mystery that runs through the entire book. Indeed, this mystery has its beginnings way back in Chapter 24 of Urban Mermaid. Let me stress that this is not one of those “the butler did it” kind of mysteries. Instead, it’s a mystery as to why two of the characters act the way they do.

After the epilogue . . .

Once I’m done with the Epilogue, I need to make some minor changes to the last two chapters. I also have to renumber some chapters where one proved to be too long and was split into two or three pieces. (In other words, no chapter 18A and chapter 18B.)

Getting down and dirty

After that, the real fun begins. I get to go back to the very first chapter and read for inconsistencies, punctuation, and places where the writing – I must use a literary technical term here – really sucks. I’m not sure how many times I’ll have to go through this process before I’m satisfied.

Next comes the exciting task of cobbling an overview of the plot and sending the whole thing off to my publisher. If she doesn’t laugh too much, then it’s contract time and the real torture begins. However, if my publisher says “Thanks, but no thanks”, then I have to consider if Syrena should even see the light of day. If the answer is “yes”, then I’ll need to launch Parsonage Press and enter the exciting world of self-publishing.

At this moment, the only thing I care about is that it is finished.

Stay tuned.