Done

Hot off the presses! Just now finished the first draft of the sequel to First. I began in late June, according to when I created the folder on my computer. That’s four months to write 75k words, which seems like a long time to me, especially since I cannibalized parts of it from previous attempts at the story. I’m not sure of the whole timeline, since it looks like I continued brainstorming and changing things up into the later stages of summer. Oh, well, no matter when I actually started it, it’s done. (Edit: I actually went back and looked at previous posts - late July is when I took the 50k words I’d already written and threw most of them in the trash, starting the new and much improved version of the story) My tentative title is First Step. It’s been an interesting journey to get this wrapped up, with false starts, wrong directions, and changes up ‘til the end in the climax. I’ve already started a list of edits that I know I need to make, but for now the draft is going into the virtual drawer for a while before I even look at it again. I’m pleased with the story overall, and I like the POVs I ended up using to tell the tale. It’s interesting to have an AI as one of the narrators, presenting some challenges but also a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Since I already have another book in the queue to publish, First Step probably won’t see the light of day for 12-18 months. In the meantime, I need to get Assignment Day out the door in 2025. My immediate plans are to catch up on marketing and contests and other stuff that I’ve put off while writing the draft, as well as taking another pass through Assignment Day and making it the best I can. In the meantime, I’m going to celebrate the completion of another book with some frosty beverages.