Kat Dancing

And that's that.

The revision is finally finished.

The book is finished.

Final stats: 438 pages (using Courier), 101 thousand words by the word processor's count, 114K via publisher's count, which is far more words than I thought I'd be able to cut. Yay.

This is weird. I've been working on this thing for nearly three years, and to look at it and think, "the only way this gets revised again is if it gets published" is... odd.

Thinking of working on another book is also odd. It's gonna take a while to get out of Joey mode.

I want the query and synopsis done by the end of the week, and then the rest of October goes to worldbuilding and outlining Journey.

For those of you who are curious as to what I've blown the last three years of my life on, here's the opening.

Here's the infodumpy news blurb that goes right before that opening:

TIMESTAMP 36 Iota 468 10:01
SOURCE Interplanetary News Service
INVISION MODE Text-only
LOCATION Harmony Station (view map)

N. MARST: This is Nicholas Marst signing on from Harmony Station. As those of you with your video modes turned on can see, the Trake ambassador hasn’t yet arrived, but the ship is docking and we are expecting the alien to appear at any moment.

There’s not as massive a turnout for this set of talks as the ones on Earth, and many people are wondering why such an off-phase location was chosen for the third and final stage of the talks. Officially the symbolism of the location is being cited: despite being a barren system, Harmony’s six phases - five to colony planets - made it a locus of fighting throughout the war, and the station is only just reopening after its abandonment in the final Blood Sun battle over a year ago.

Unofficially, my sources are telling me that Harmony’s isolation was the reason it was chosen. With over seven million anti-peace protesters all over the Unity, and with the violence that plagued the first set of talks, Unity officials are looking to cut their losses. All of the military personnel had to pass xenophobia screening tests before boarding, civilian access is heavily restricted, and I’m informed that the security preparations have been colossal. Whether these precautions will prevent incidents at this set of talks remains to be seen....

And here's the best description of my main character (and her commanding officer) that I've written:

Patricia was Joey's physical opposite: tall where Joey was short, broad where Joey was narrow, fair where Joey was dark, imposing where Joey needed a swift kick somewhere soft to get proper respect. Not that people were generally disrespectful to Joey even after they'd stopped limping, but the thought was there.

God, I hope this gets published. Because I won't write a sequel unless it does, and the sequel is eating my brain....