A quick hello

Hi all! It's the last day of March 2008, and I just want to stop by and give a small update: the first independent reader of the text has completed the read-through, and all seems well so far. :) One more person will look over the text (and this has been going on for about two weeks now) and in the next month or so that final reading should be ready. At this point, David J Howe will provide me with the provisional final draft for my final approval and then we will just have to wait for the cover before typesetting the text. So, the last steps are well underway! :)

Drafts and more...

After two weeks, I'm back to tell the boring rest of the story. :)

The first draft of the book ended up containing 170,477 words, which David quickly told me was too much and he asked me to pare down the manuscript to about 90,000 words. David and I also worked on the detailed outline for the book, shaping and editing it to keep it consistent and to remove some more tangential aspects of the original proposal. With a completed outline, I finished up this second draft on December 27 2007, with about 115,000 words. Close enough? :)

Yes, and David accepted this and edited a third draft which I received about a month ago. This one had 103,000 words. When we met again at the GallifreyOne convention last month, he asked me to read through the draft and edit or input any changes I felt necessary. I quickly began and finished, and sent him the 4th draft in late February.

As of now, this draft is being read by an independent reader and will then receive a couple more final read-throughs and edits before final approval and type-setting, and then ... the book is ready for printing!

So, what now? Well, I'll have to think of strange (not really) and hopefully thoughtful things to say until I get word of the book. But wait until you see the cover ... :)

The determined time

Wow, February really rushes by, doesn't it? It's been almost two weeks again since my last post, so, here I go again. :)

After Craig's death, I announced on the Outpost Gallifrey that Time's Champion was still going forward, and that I was the co-author. I received a lot of support and enthusiasm from fans on the site which really bouyed me at the time. I also received a message from Simon Guerrier, who told me of his interest in trying publish the book through Big Finish's Short Trips range, but he was kind enough to be honest enough to tell me the chances of this were slim, and in fact, when he checked with the BBC, it didn't work out. Still, I made a new friend. :)

However, I also got word from David J Howe, offering to help publish the book, in this case as a charity release for the British Heart Foundation. David also offered to help out with editing of the book. I accepted without a doubt. :)

David and I arranged to meet at the GallifreyOne convention in February 2007, and there we discussed these details and what he hoped me to do. In essence, that was to finish the manuscript. So, I went to work, hoping to finish this by May of that year. It took until August 27th. :)