There's a Draft ...

So: Through the first draft on the current novel-in-progress. Still needs another pass to add or subtract this 'n' that, smooth out the rough spots, but my Writer's Prayer was answered once again:


"Lord, don't let me die before I get the book done ..."


Because of the constraints of the contract, I am not able to put excerpts of it up here yet. Probably as we get closer to pub date, that will become possible. 


When I get it polished, I may ask for a reader to run through it and see if it works. Given the time-crunch–it's technically due in three days, that might not happen; I'm not expecting the decks to be entirely cleared come New Year's Day over to the book house, but you never know. We'll see.


I'm pleased. It is (intentionally) leaner than what I have been doing of late. I pitched these at  75,000 words and it's hair over that.  Might go up a tad on the rewrite, but not that much. 


The book moves pretty fast, has a fair amount of action, guns going off, knives slicing, all like that. 


Dunno when it is slotted for publication, probably some time late in 2012. 


Cutter's Wars: The Ramal Extraction.


The next one's working title is, Cutter's Wars: The Vastalimi Gambit. 


Dunno what the third one will be called, I haven't gotten around to doing anything on it yet. I may wait until the second one gets cranking and see what calls to me. 


Addendum: When you run the spellchecker on a science fiction manuscript? You spend a lot of time tapping the "Learn" button ...