Celebration time! Despite the fact my office is currently hot enough to roast an author, I’ve just wrapped up the third draft of Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet.

Final word count was 60,577, about 5,000 words more than the second draft. Some of that is due to the fact that I added little introductory recaps and a slightly rewritten version of the previous couple of paragraphs to the beginning of each chapter – just like the old serials that inspired the book. I’m not sure what readers will think of that but I like it.

It took me about eighteen and a half hours to get through this third draft so I would imagine there’s at least another thirty hours of revisions left to go before I’m willing to call it quits. I’m a firm believer in the old saying – “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”

I’m doing something new (for me) with this book, I’ve hired a professional editor for a full content edit. I have had critiques and copy editing done before, but never a full edit like this. I’ve just sent the manuscript off so I’ll be waiting (im)patiently for her to get back to me with her comments.

In the meantime, I need to finish off the first draft of Leah and decide whether I’m going to launch into my next book or be a good little author and revise the final 15,000 words of The Ghost Smuggler.

I know what I want to do and I know what I should do and they are not the same thing. Maybe I can go all Kobayashi Maru on the problem and do both.

[Glitch – Draft Three Complete by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 6th July 2014]