… I think I just finished the book.

Not Finished-Finished, as in ‘I can send this off to the editor now’, but finished-finished in that I think it’s all basically there, and I just need to go through it to insert/check formatting code and scan for highlighted areas where I left myself notes to tidy up or explain or insert things.

There are the rough patches and bits where my argument kind of stops and needs a better summing up before moving on to the next topic, but I’ll leave those for the editors to point out. I can always keep looking at it on my end and fix them when the first rewrite comes back. (I am still twitching obsessively to a degree, but it’s only taken me five books to learn that it does not all have to be perfect in the first draft. Mostly perfect is acceptable.)

And then there’s the search for references to chapter numbers that I have to find and correct, thanks to the new chapter 2.5 (soon to be Chapter Three!). The new chapter is only ten pages long, which is about half the size of an average chapter in this book, so I suspect I’ll be asked to move other material into it or create something the editors feel is missing there. Right now I am too fried to look for it, and the other stuff takes precedence.

So yeah: Finished-Finished tomorrow. Wow. After officially beginning in November and living with the subject for five months, I am definitely at the point of the relationship with this book where I need time away. (it’s not you, book, it’s me, please don’t take it personally.)

It has been a very good day.