129,682
We’ll call that done.
Ladies and gentlemen, a minor announcement bundled into a major one: In Ashes Lie (note the slight change) is complete, at approximately one hundred and thirty thousand words.
***
This is my longest novel yet, by about four thousand words. I am very glad I asked my editor for permission to run over my target wordcount; it needed that extra 20K. I strongly suspect it is also my most ambitious book to date, though from here in the trenches it’s hard to tell. It doesn’t give me the feeling of accomplishment that Midnight Never Come did, because this one isn’t a watershed: last year, I reached the summit of the peak I had been climbing for some years, while this year, I started up a new one. The latter is better for me than the former, but it doesn’t give quite the same warm glow of satisfaction.
I think it will be a good book, though. Ambitious. And full of stuff blowing up. And who doesn’t like that?
***
No rest for the wicked. Tomorrow I tackle the remaining revisions, so I can get this thing to my editor. Much of the novel has already been beaten into shape, each Part before each day of the Fire, but work remains to be done. (Like fixing the prologue. Which currently blows. Not blows up; just blows.) But I’ll try to find time in there for some celebration. After a hundred and thirty thousand words, I think I deserve some kind of party.
