Progress Update III

All-New Sloane Lone is getting very close to completion; the third and final draft is currently sitting at 81,575 words. The first seven chapters of the book are 95% done; there are a small handful of things I know I want to revise, but as the chapters exist they're completely readable / comprehensible.

It's looking like the book is going to be eleven chapters long. Chapters eight, nine, ten, and eleven are all at least partially completed. Chapters eight and nine are both around 50-60% completed. Chapter ten is roughly 25% done, and chapter eleven is just getting started. What inspired me to write this progress update is that I'm starting to write the last few scenes of the book and the reality of things set in.

I'm truly on the home stretch, and it's a strange feeling. The first draft of this book was started on September 21, 2022. I haven't been working on it continuously that entire time, there was a gap between the second and third drafts, but it's always been occupying a space in my mind. When I wasn't working on it, I was lamenting that I hadn't completed it. I'm wondering what the next project will be that makes me feel this invested.

All that being said, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done.

I have some music-related books coming in the mail soon, and I plan on using them to add some realism and additional texture to a few scenes in the book that mostly relate to music business stuff. I also have Chuck Palahniuk's writing book Consider This arriving. I've read the PDF of his blog posts that preceded Consider This, and I consider that the best text on writing I've read. So I'm interested to see how Consider This might inform my final round of revisions, especially a chapter called Troubleshooting Your Fiction.

On the topic of revisions. I intend to complete this draft and then it printed loose leaf. I'll put it into a binder, let it sit for a week or two, and then read the entire thing from start to finish and make a bunch of new notes. I'd also like to find a test reader who hasn't read any draft of the book, has no knowledge of what the story is even about, and get their opinion on things. Because the two people who've been reading my current draft have a unique relationship with the text, as I've been talking about the book with them as I've been writing it.

There are also some companion short stories / novellas that are going to be included with the book. Three of them are already completed. One of them I've already started and have a bunch of ideas where it could go. The last one I have around three thousands words of notes for. There's another one I was thinking of writing, but I'm not sure if I will yet. These short stories will either be completed at lightning speed, or end up taking a long time to finish.

There are also supplemental materials that I'd like to include as tier bonuses. I'm definitely going to include plot outlines that I used to write the final draft. I'm planning on writing a chapter-by-chapter commentary of the book, which will mostly focus on how the book was written. I'm still on the fence about whether or not I should include the incomplete first and second drafts.

My estimate that the book would be completed by June is seeming increasingly unlikely. Mercifully, I have a deadline: the book needs to be ready by around the middle of August for inclusion in a bundle. So, it will need to be done by then. I don't think that deadline is unreasonable with the leisurely pace I'm currently working at, and I'm probably going to speed things up a bit for the sake of having it done a bit early.

It's going to be exciting to see how people respond to this book. And I'm also excited to order a POD copy from Lulu or something. This is the first novel I've ever written solo, and I'm eager to hold a copy of it in my hands for the first time.