Finished!

Yes, really. The first draft of chapter 13 is complete. Grand total: 42,831 words—about 247K.

The last 3,000 words were written today. The very last bit finished was the in-recent-chapters blurb, which always takes a while because it has to be hand-justified. (If you read the text version of SM4200, you'll know what I mean.)

sigh   Whew.

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What happens next: I'll take a day or two's break, and then give the whole thing another read-through. It's pretty likely that I'll want to revise the last sections, because they were written at some speed. ^_^ After that, it goes out to the pre-readers.

Don't expect to see it posted for a while yet—probably a month or more, based on previous experience. After all, this is a big chapter and it takes a while for a careful pre-reader to go through that much text.

In the meantime, I get to start worrying about what goes in chapter 14! To be honest, it's not a chapter I relish writing; there's going to be some nasty stuff in there. But it's stuff that's been on the cards for a long time, and it needs to happen…we'll see how it goes. Hopefully a bit faster than 13, at least…!

Taking the good with the bad

It's been an interesting week. I've started going to a gymnasium after work, three days a week (sadly, the gym's name is not "Olympus"), and have been left predictably sore and tired. It's good for me, I suppose, but why are the good-for-you things hardly ever fun?

On the downside, my landlord has told me that he's putting my apartment up for sale, so it's possible that I may have to move in a couple of months or so. That definitely won't be fun. Not to mention being incredibly disruptive. (You try packing up thousands upon thousands of books. Then unpacking them again in a new place.) It's always possible that a buyer may be happy to keep an existing tenant on, but…well, we'll see.

What I'm watching: Heroes. I, er, acquired a complete run of the first season, and am working my way through it. It's a lot better than I'd expected, actually. On the anime side: Sola and Claymore. Also taking a look at Strawberry Panic and La Corda d'Oro.

On the SM4200 front—as I said before, I cut nearly two thousand words and have since re-written them. I'm a good deal happier with how it hangs together now. The chapter's now up to 37,000 words, and getting really really really close to done.

I have now posted the new piece of fan-art from Pumpkin. Actually, I posted it four days ago, but I didn't mention it until now…sorry.

Latest news

36,000 words. But that figure may drop sharply soon; there's quite a chunk (nearly 2000 words) that I think I'm going to have to throw away and rewrite. The scene I've been working on for the last week or so has been going in the wrong direction, and most of what I've been doing to the story this weekend has been repairs. I think I know how things need to go, now, but there'll be a bit of catching up to do.

Received a new piece of fan art yesterday, and I'll be posting it as soon as I get a couple of details from the artist.

I've been somewhat distracted from writing lately. My elder brother, who lives in the US, has been over here on a concert tour. (He's a pianist.) He's looking good—it's been great to see him again. The tour has been going very well, but obviously there have been a number of family get-togethers. Last night, almost the entire family were together for dinner at a teppanyaki restaurant—the most of us together in one place for quite a long time. (Normally the family is spread out over four cities and two countries.)

Meanwhile I've also been watching the anime Rocket Girls. This is a terrific series that I've been enjoying very much; I just watched the last episode tonight. If you have access to fansubs, I definitely recommend you check it out. It's about a trio of teenage girls who get drafted as astronauts because their small size and weight allows smaller and lower-powered rockets, which is a boon for a fledgling Japanese space agency. Great series! Also been watching Sola—another very good series.

Oh, and I think I'm coming down with a cold. bummer. ^_^