Before this rewrite, the first part of Talassio was about 33k. I had thought perhaps to try and trim it; instead I upped the stakes (at least, I’m hoping I’ve upped the stakes). There is a lot that needs to be communicated, unfortunately: there are two main plot threads kicking off, and more than one character whose motivations need to be delineated. Add in just enough worldbuilding for the reader to understand the framework, plus my own love of pretty wordcraft, and, well, you’ve got a lot of material to get through.
All that being said, I am now around the 25k mark? in terms of reshaped scenes, and by my reckoning I have about three more to go before we can, once again, transition to Venice. So it’ll probably be right back around 33k, only with more fisticuffs and running across rooftops.
And while I am working on fiddling all the bits in Parts 2 & 3 that might be affected by the rewrite, I will send Part 1 out for a spin ’round the beta readers . . . and, sadly, try to do some focused research to backfill in a few London details . . . and when all that fixing and cleanup is done, we might be back in the neighborhood of submissions again.
Which is to say, I really don’t know how folks can pound out edited, polished, pub-ready 100k novels in a year. At this point I’ll be happy if I get the damn thing done before retirement.
IN OTHER NEWS, both Goodreads and LibraryThing are giving away ARCs of Long Hidden. You can enter the draws here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list#14673007
AND, I’m starting to hear whispers about an upcoming Fae announcement. It’s shaping up to be an exciting spring!