Finishing Up

Thanks to the efforts of my fabulous proofreader (thank you, Michelle!), I've cleaned up the manuscript through the end of chapter 12. I should be getting another chunk (or maybe the whole thing, depending on her workload) from her soon, and then I'll continue the process of picking up her marks and making Gart's Road better. After that, I'll do one final pass where I read it aloud to myself and make notes and changes as I go. Dennis L. McKiernan suggested that to me a very long time ago, and that particular technique has helped me quite a bit.

Art for the cover is coming along well, and I have a couple of artists working on stuff for me. Here's one rough sketch that I like a lot.

I really enjoy this part of the process, actually seeing some of my characters like this. I have almost no talent as an artist, so this kind of thing fascinates me.

So the end is in sight for Gart's Road. I had originally planned to have it published in July, but you know what they say about the plans of mice and men. Each day brings me one day closer to having it all wrapped up in a pretty bow, and that will be quite a thrill! I'll keep you posted.

Off the subject, I'm currently reading Jim Butcher's series, The Dresden Files. I'm on book four, Summer Knight. Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, Harry Dresden, leads quite the adventurous life. If you're into this kind of thing--you know, magic, faeries, werewolves, vampires, demons, and wizards, all causing trouble in modern-day Chicago--you might want to give the series a look. Just sayin'.