Rejoice! For Plain Kate is Finished!
At 8:12 last night, at the tail end of one of our writing trip -- in fact, while turning the corner from Courtland to Mill Street -- I finished Plain Kate. She weighed in at 57,000 words. Author and manuscript are both doing well. It is, if I say it, a very fine book.
It's got an orphan hero, a broken-hearted magician, and an unwilling ghost. But really .... it's all about the cat.
I started Plain Kate three and a half years ago. I remember the moment: we were heading home from the Ghost Maps book tour, and I was amazed by the sight of the airplane separating from its shadow and leaving it on the ground. I wrote the prologue on the plane. It didn't go anywhere at first, and then I wrote a book about the Bible, and then I wrote Kate's first 15,000 words, and then I had a baby, and then I wrote a book about the baby.
But last fall I started noodling with Kate again, and by spring had 30,000 words. And then things really took off, and I did more than half the novel in about three months: May, June, and July.
Some things that I had to learn a lot about to write Kate:
I am never writing a historical again. (Of course, I said that last time.) Actually, I don't know what I'm writing next. I'd like to do something funny, but have no funny ideas. In fact, since one of the ideas I do have involves a future take on the ancient practice of giving the children of your king to your enemy in the hopes of avoiding war, I suspect I am simply not a funny person.
It is strange to be finished with a book after so long. I feel bewildered and a little bereft. But also pleased and excited to be finished.
And of course, when I say "finished" I do not mean finished. My method of writing means my first draft is closer to final copy than other first drafts might be (I have, for instance, already thrown out whole chapters) it is still a draft. There is one major plot thread I need to tug on, which will (I hope) shift the hero's role in the climax in subtle but important ways. And there are other, more minor things to be done. It's perhaps a month's work. Maybe more. But I'm not ready to start it quite yet.
2 Comments
You are a very funny person, Erin. Unfortunately, you also pay attention to things. Swings and roundabouts.
I remember when you started this book! I’m looking forward to reading it. It sounds magical and wonderful.