LIBERATOR (free planet novel #2) – first draft complete – 69,000 words.

Well, I didn't expect that to happen like that…

There I was, writing away, somewhere close to the 66,000 words mark. I had the two final chapters to flesh out, still. But I also had 'four assigned alternating military/civilian chapter slots' to fill before I got there. And one more part-written chapter before that lot.

Then suddenly, I realised, “It's done.”

I deleted those four empty chapter slots, lifted my hands from the keyboard, then shared the news with a good friend of mine, “It's done,” I grinned. And she said what a good doggy I was. Patted me on the head while my inner tail wagged and my tongue lolled out. I'm such a good doggy woggy. I am, heh heh heh.

LIBERATOR's looking like it's gonna be about 69,000 words or so. It was written in four months in longhand into two notebooks, like my War World summer novel TANDEM. Plus ending LIBERATOR here leaves all the afore-planned intrigue and 'denoument' for the third and final part in the Free Planet trilogy, REAPER, to come. What I mean by this is 'I didn't spoil the original book three premise' by trying to cram it all into book two like I nearly did at one point in the last few days.

I'm not even gonna bother with a teaser chapter from book three, as I did at the end of book one. I know where this story's going. And maybe you do too. I certainly don't feel like I need to convince you to come along with me for the ride of your life. You're in or you're not.

ONE HOUR LATER UPDATE: upon further consideration, moderate editing, furtive typing towards a resolution of 'the unfinished last chapter but two' and whatnot, “Yes, that's it,” it's done. I'm now very close to a feeling of TOTALLY PSYCHED. But that could also be down to the massive amounts of filter coffee I've quaffed all day on my mega-marathon writing binge devouring five or six different music CDs for this narrative-via-character finale, including classic Slipknot, Asalah, Camelspotting, Gorecki and Koto Music of Japan.

Twelve straight hours of non-stop typing. From eight o'clock this morning until now, eight o'clock at night. And still a few more paragraphs in me before the night's over.

FIVE DAYS LATER UPDATE: I went back in and 'reworked' Civilian Chapter One and Military Chapter Four are technically 'imposter chapters' wedged into the beginning of the book once more than half the book had been written. I'd decided to properly cover 'the last four years' of Free Planet with these two summary chapters.

My editor, who helped me finalise the Custodian manuscript and has a copy of the first draft of this Liberator manuscript, so let's see what her 'fresh pair of eyes' see.