Moon Over Manhattan is DONE!

On July 13th, 2010 I posted on this blog that I had a book idea. I then took you on a journey with me on how I discovered who it was about...how I decided to do a photo-shoot, and so on.

And as of 12:30am this morning...I'd finished the book. No joke. 30 Chapters + a tiny Epilogue (to piss off the readers of course because its the cliff hanger in case I want to write another one...and how could I not? I love these characters!) and BEFORE edit its at...hold onto your belt buckles people...175,829 words. Phew! No kidding...she's a big'en huh? Actually, to be honest, my first novel, Living Dead Girl; Book One - The Betrayal is 188,000 words AFTER edit so...I think I did better this time around on a "book one" (seeing as they need to have more backstory than other books).

Now, there is still a little over a week of NaNoWriMo left...so...what to do? Well, I'm going to do a "Lightning Edit". This is one of those things where I'll sit down and just start hacking away at it--cutting things I feel are "indulgent" or "boring" or "too wordy" (who me?). I would like to, in the end, cut a minimal of 25,829 words so the book is no more than 150,000 but...on the first pass let's set our sights on a more realistic goal...especially since we only have a short time to do it. Let's say.....5,000? Is that unrealistic? We'll see.


Anyhoo...I'm both sad and happy. Happy to have honestly written a full novel in four months...but sad to be done. It's been a great few months and I've had a blast! My story telling has gotten better I feel and this book is a lot of fun. It not only has a primary mystery plot that develops nicely but a love story that I feel is one of my better ones; my two lovely readers were very (and I do mean VERY) investsed in that part so, I think I nailed it better than before. Honestly, I'm going to miss my dysfunctional couple Denika and Cash----though, by the end they're not so dysfunctional.

After I do the Lightning Edit the book will get put in a drawer (metaphorically speaking of course) for a few months while I go back to LDG4. Once I've had some time away I can give it a better edit. I'm too close to the book right now to really attack and hack at it. #ThingsToKnowAboutYourself

I leave you all with a picture of the dynamic due...good gal sister and bad guy brother---ever enemies...Denika and Demyan...