What Does “Finishing” Even Mean?

I finished my rewrite of Queen & Tower last night and sent it off to first readers. Yay!

Wait, you say; haven’t I heard that before?

Yes. Yes you have. Why, it was just October when I said much the same thing.

But now! It is ever so much finished-er!

I don’t even know how many times I have finished rewriting this novel. It’s almost as impossible a question as “How many novels have you written?” Because even just this particular novel started life as a novel called 360, but that one was never finished; it was abandoned and the plot stolen for a novel called Nightcraft Sister, which WAS finished, clocking in at a mere 250,000 words; and a sequel was also finished, called Nightcraft Mother; and both of those novels were critted up one side and down the other and heavily rewritten, and cut down so that they were one reasonably sized novel, the first novel in the series, called Nightcraft Mother; and I even had an agent for that one for a while, but, you know; and then the whole thing was put aside while I did other things for years; and then my friend Jak was reopening his publishing house and said, Hey, let me read your witch novel; and he did, and liked it, but suggested some big changes, including reconceiving the series and changing the title to The Queen and The Tower; so I made those changes, but then Mark read it, and had further, bigger, other change suggestions; and then some other things got written (like Our Lady), and life got busy; and then I got into the deep rewrite/rework again, earlier this year; and then my friend Jak realized he needed to shut down his publishing house; but dammit, I’m going to finish this novel. And it is going to be FANTASTIC. Wherever it ultimately gets published.

(It’ll be an audio book, no matter what; Audible has already acquired the rights to it. So there’s that.)

This is the book of my heart, but even I admit that it’s time to finish it and move on to something else–even if that’s the sequel (which I’ve got some super cool ideas for). And then I’ve got another “something else” already frothing at the mouth to be written–you will be hearing about it soon, including details about the magnificent writer with whom I will be collaborating. SO EXCITING let me tell you. And I’ve got a nonfiction project I’m editing which is also MADE OF JOY.

If only there were more hours in a day!

But hey. I finished my rewrite!

And cleaned my office.

Just ignore the spiderwebs. It’s clean, I tell you, clean.