Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

Good news bad news this week.

The good news is that despite a barrel-load of distractions hitting me, I managed to review sixty pages of copy-edited text this week, well over a fifth of the entire manuscript.

The bad news is that is not proofing is it?

I wanted to jump a step. I wanted to believe my edits were enough. They never are. Proofing became copy editing, and I’m grateful it did as it has led to very obvious improvements in the text, and the presentation of ideas and actions in the text.

You always think you are done, you never are.

Now, I can be very clear and say this is not a rabbit hole into the editing hell that overtook The Killer and The Dead (which is awesome, by the way—read it!), but it is a delay. I do not see how I can make my end of March deadline for publication given I still have approximately two hundred and ten pages to copy edit and proof.  

Especially as I have not reached out to my cover designer because last time I told him I needed a cover and I’d be done with edits in a month or two, it was three years until I needed the final cover. That was and remains deeply embarrassing. I do not want to waste his time again.

So my deadline moves back. I’m not sure to when. April/May/June? I would be depressed about this, but I just did a ton of solid work on the book which is a huge positive, so instead I’m merely conflicted. Which as a writer is not an unusual situation to be in.

Funnily enough I just read Joe Abercrombie’s year in review blog, where he shared his book writing progress, and how he still has line and copy edits to come on a book that won’t be out until mid 2025! So I feel a little better about my delay. (I was randomly clicking on famous author’s websites to see what they were doing/how they were presenting themselves nowadays (I call it market research, others may call it a form of doom scrolling), and his held my attention—kudos!) Joe does of course have a few other projects (and a sequel!) he is working on, so our circumstances are very very far from similar (hahahaha!), but I’ll take my crumbs of comfort where I can. Parentheses were abused in the making of that paragraph. Apologies.

So, a delay, but I have optimism, as the book has benefited greatly from the changes made this weekend.

I wish you well, my friends. We all walk our version of the long road. Many versions all at once, truth be told. One of mine is in writing. I encourage you to enjoy the signposts of progress you pass along the way, and not be disheartened by the distance yet to travel. You have come far already. Keep walking.