I’m still not sure which side of this thing I’m really on.
(image by Andrew Hurley)

Have you ever been close to finished with something for so long that it feels like you’ll never actually be finished with it? “Almost done,” you say, then work another week and say the same again. A month left in a months-long project is certainly a definition of almost done, but it leaves a lot of room for continued work. Why do we tell ourselves these encouraging little half-truths? Motivation? Myopia? Did we really believe it at the time?

I’ve been working on the manuscript to Rebel Skyforce, the second novel in the Mad Tinker Chronicles. I’ve been projecting it at a similar length to the 101k word Mad Tinker’s Daughter. Yet ever since I hit the 50k word mark, I’ve been telling myself I’ve got this thing ready to wrap up. Almost done. Just a few more days push and it’s complete.

Here’s the part I find funny. I’m about 90k words in, after staying up to nearly 1am to finish a chapter (I love writing chapters near the end of a book. Once I get rolling, it’s hard to stop). I probably have 2-3 days left in the manuscript. Almost done, right? Right? Oh yeah, there’s that whole editing and revision thing. I know those of you waiting on the book don’t like hearing it, but editing takes months. I go through my own revisions, send it out to beta readers and my editor, wait for them to all look it over and get back to me, then more revisions, more edits of those revisions, etc.

I’m excited about Rebel Skyforce being completed. I just have to adjust my definition a bit.