The Tasty Joy of Finishing the First Draft

So, I finished the first draft of Dead Zoo Shuffle a couple of days ago. The last few chapters took a little longer than I anticipated, although so far every single book has been the same; you think you've got the ending all figured out, and then it throws up a few little surprises just when you're convinced you're on the home stretch.

This book has been an interesting journey. It was my first attempt at crime (er, as a genre, I didn't do any actual bank robbing) and  my first attempt at novel length first-person narrative. It was the first book I planned chapter by chapter and my first real experiment with the trappings of science-fiction. And I think the risks paid off, at least in terms of how much I enjoyed the writing. In many ways I feel like I found my voice with this story, or the beginnings of it.

There's an awful lot of work still to be done, of course, with the editing and redrafting already looking to be a big job, and there's plenty of stuff I know needs to be tightened, or added, or cut entirely. Unusually though I'm looking forward to it (remind me of this when I actually come to edit the thing, I'm sure I'll be less enthusiastic then).

So now I'm putting Dead Zoo Shuffle aside for a short time while I finish polishing Ink for Thieves. I'm also starting to put together notes on a potential fantasy/steampunk novel called The Iron-Haunted Heart, a project that's been bouncing down my mental rapids for a while now (no, I don't know either) and fiddling about with a couple of short stories. I said in January that this would be the year for editing and submitting, didn't I?  So as much as I might like writing books and then putting them in a drawer to forget about, I do believe it is time to embrace the red pen...