The end is in sight...

I've mentioned King Stone a couple of times on the Scribbles so far - it's my current WIP.

It took 74 writing days (as in, I wrote on each of 74 days a varying amount of words, but not necessarily purely on KS) to write a s****y first draft - going from an A4 notebook filled with notes and sketches and questions and ideas to a typed up version on a memory stick.

It's taken me a further 63 writing days so far (again - not all on KS) to have solidified 22 of the 23 (possibly 24, I'm not sure yet) chapters into something that actually reads like a proper, put-together story. I'm hoping that with a push, maybe in another week, I'll have finished and can lay claim to a completed second draft.

Funny thing is, this 'second' draft is actually more like a first. The first type up was simply me, telling myself the story - the second is the 'real' version. I have a theme, I have strong characters, I have conflict...and, I hope, I actually have good writing.

As I've been going along, I've been sharing the chapters with a few folk, testing the story to ensure everything's hanging together well and my characters are coming across as I want them too. The feedback so far is that it does, although of course there's still a good amount of work needed in places to bring King Stone up to scratch.

I am excited by this story. I was excited by StarMark - still am, as it'll be published next year - and I was excited by Rurik when I started to tell his story. But King Stone...there's a whole different level of something here that I can't put my finger on. Something to do with the fact that my confidence has grown, that I have found a distinct voice as an author, that I have told the story that I wanted to - without any of the 'industry' telling me what I should or shouldn't be writing. It's been an amazingly liberating process, and I hope bodes well for stories I might want to tell in the future.

Who knows? If this 'second' draft gets finished and I leave it to rest for a while, I might even be able to plan something new for NaNoWriMo at this rate...

The King Stone...?