First draft of my latest novel is complete, and it’s been a long time coming. Started writing this novel at the very end of 2006, and for various and sundry reasons it took me a lot longer than usual to finish it. On average, I’d finish a novel every year or two (even monster novels like this current one), but this one was a challenge, partly because it is the most complex work I’ve written.

Of course, there’s still some work that needs done before I can foist it upon my alpha readers. For example, as I write I tend to keep track of things that I want to fix as I go along, stuff like deciding a term or concept I created in the first few chapters doesn’t really work as the story goes along, realizing I need to add a small reference to something in earlier chapters, or other various continuity fixes that would make the story less confusing for my first batch of test readers. This takes some time, but it’s not nearly as arduous a process since I’ve done this many times before and I have a checklist to work through.

Another thing I still need to do: At the beginning of each chapter is a little snippet—a proverb, a “scripture” passage, or a pithy saying—that relates to the chapter in some way and serves as a way to highlight the differences between the forces at work. I’ve written probably a full third of them, but the creative momentum often dictated I skip them and leave a placeholder so I could come back to them later. Likewise with chapter titles. For some reason, I’ve always named my chapters. It’s not always common practice within the genre, but I feel it adds another level of depth, as even a title can show an insight into the mind of a given character.

Lastly, I still need a good title. My working title was from ages ago, long before I really even knew what the book was going to be about, and things have changed a lot since then. Coming up with a good title is much more difficult than one might think.

But at least the novel’s done. I’ve deposited the lump of coal, and now all it needs some time and pressure.