Soldier of Dorsa is DONE! (Progress Report for January 6, 2020)

203,920 words, y’all. That’s how long the complete second draft of Soldier of Dorsa ended up being. And 52,000 of those words were written between December 1 and the day I finished, January 5. In other words, I basically pulled a NaNoWriMo without intending to.

Originally, I had planned to finish the novel by January 12, which is the Sunday before my next round of graduate school courses begins. But then I decided to go to my new school site today, January 6 — a week before I technically have to, because I am an overachiever like that. (Please insert the eye-roll emoji here.)

At first, I actually pushed my self-imposed due-date BACK, thinking, “Well, there’s no way I’m going to be done by January 6, but once school starts again all bets are off, so I’d better say January 20.”

Then I started listening to the audiobook version of The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. The book’s basic mantra is:

And so I listened. I decided that Soldier of Dorsa was already well overdue (it’s already seven months later that I intended it to be, dammit!) and I wasn’t going to allow it to be even more overdue. I didn’t have grad school, I didn’t have lesson planning or student teaching or homework or anywhere specific to be… I WAS GOING TO FINISH THIS G-D BOOK IF IT KILLED ME.

It nearly did kill me. On Saturday, January 5, I wrote almost 6,300 words in one day, pushing hard to get the book done by Monday. I stopped that day around 9pm, halfway through the Epilogue, when I realized I just didn’t have any more creative gas to finish the final scene. On Sunday, I sat my butt down and committed not to get up again until that Epilogue was finished. 1,200 words later, it was.

I wonder which is harder… finishing the draft or revising it?

I don’t know if you see those MasterClass.com commercials pop up on YouTube, but somehow the goblins of Google know that I’m a writer and always have me watching MasterClass commercials from Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, and Neil Gaiman.

Like all normal people, I hit “Skip Ad” as soon as it pops up on the screen, but before I can get to that point, Neil Gaiman says something that always sticks out to me:

The second draft is where you make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.

Some books are very Athena-like — they pop out of my head fully formed and require almost no reshaping whatsoever. To Have Loved & Lost is the best example of this. I basically only re-read for grammar, spelling, and punctuation and did not change the story at all.

But I think fantasy is different. When I revised Princess of Dorsa, I spent weeks deleting, rewriting, and reshaping. Entire chapters got tossed out; entire new chapters were written. The first third of the book had to be almost totally redone. It was messy, though I’m pretty happy with the final product.

I know so much more about the Empire now than when I started writing Soldier back in February 2019. I also know way more of Joslyn’s life story — and Tasia’s too, for that matter, though it was Joslyn’s life that I really learned more of.

Knowing more means that early parts of the book are going to need to change to fit with where the book eventually ends up… in other words, I need to make it look like I knew what I was doing all along.

“Yes, yes, but when will it actually be out? When can I read it??”

Well, first of all, I would highly recommend subscribing to my newsletter if you haven’t already, because I’m going to be giving a bunch of copies away for free before I actually hit that magical “Publish” button.

I anticipate finishing the rewriting process by the end of January, then spending about two or three more weeks copy editing (proofing) for final little typos and bugs that need to be ironed out.

The bottom line: I can now say with confidence that Soldier of Dorsa will be out by mid-February.

Right on time for Valentine’s Day, because I love y’all.