Tuesday, July 18, 2006

FINISHED IT!!

Faerie Lord went off to Sophie (my literary agent) this morning. A doorstop of a manuscript running to 532 typed pages. That's just short of 99,000 words, which makes it longer than any of the previous three books. That said, I've a tendency to overwrite (25,000 words came out of the first draft of Purple Emperor) so that could come down a little. Or even a lot.

The book itself is peculiar -- very archetypal, very odd -- but I think it finishes Henry's story in a satisfying way. At least I hope so. What next? God knows. I'll need a bit of time to recover, then onwards and upwards.

Meanwhile I heard this morning from my old friend Dave Donohue, who's in New York at the moment swinging on the chandeliers of the Waldorf Astoria, which he's using as one of the settings for his next book. His publishers, Scholastic, are planning a massive publicity campaign to launch Moon Man, his new Walter Speazlebud adventure. It's a fun book, original and quirky -- I read one of the early drafts -- so watch out for it in the shops.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aww... I hate it when series stop... they should go on forever and ever... Yeah well, congratulations!

Herbie Brennan said...

Me too. I miss the characters, who turn into old friends in your head. As against that, it's only Henry's story that's complete. Might be possible to find somebody else of interest in the Faerie Realm. We'll see...