Meredith Mansfield, Author

Last post I was on Chapter 43 of BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM.

I am currently on Chapter 44. So, as I said in my last post, this bit has slowed me down a little. In fact, I’m reminding myself–or trying to–that this part doesn’t have to be good, doesn’t have to be my best writing–yet. It’s a first draft. I’m reminding myself of Shannon Hale’s great quote on the subject of first drafts about shoveling sand into a box in order to be able to build castles later.

However, looking ahead, I believe there are only about six chapters left after this one. And I have all of them in my rolling outline. One or two of those could split for various reasons, like a change of POV character. Still, that’s two to three more weeks at recent speed and way ahead of my projected schedule.

And that’s very good news for how the rest of the schedule for this book could go. If I can complete it by the end of July–or thereabouts. Then August becomes the month of rest for this manuscript. (I’ll likely be starting a rewrite of MAGE STORM during that time.) Then September for the revisions. And out to my beta readers in October–which is a very good goal to try for because November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and some of my beta readers probably wouldn’t be available. And December is . . . well, December. Everybody’s busy. That would leave November/December for final revisions and the polishing edit. It might even be possible that this would be published in December, but January becomes a very good bet.

After the sometimes tooth-pulling experience of getting the first draft of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING done,

this one has been really fun. And fast.