Yes, I Know What I Said Before

I'm almost finished with the second draft of Hero Go Home. Yes, yes, I know what I said before about putting it aside to write a better Digger novel. But even in that entry, I mentioned that as soon as I decided to stop, my block seemed to disappear.

Here's the weird thing: when I wrote Blue Falcon, lo these many years ago, it took me almost exactly one year to write the first draft. I thought the second draft would go much faster, but once again, it was almost exactly a year.

When I wrote the first draft of Hero Go Home, I seemed to have learned a lot about how to write novels. Instead of a year, the first draft only took about seven months, from November 1, 2005 to May 27, 2006. I figured I'd knock out the revision over the summer, get the book in the mail by fall.

Instead, here I am with about 10,000 words to go, and it's looking as if it will be within a week or two of the one year mark by the time I finish. A year again. What the hell?

Oh yeah, and speaking of Digger, it looks as if Agog! is finally going to publish the DaiKaiju sequels this year. I'll be in the number three anthology, due for publication in October. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, it's cool to finally end that suspense and add another publishing credit to my resume, not to mention the fact that every published Digger story increases the potential audience for the novel. On the other hand, the story is approaching three years old now, I think, and it's not my best work. Both Digger and I have grown since the story was written. I'm tempted to ask them if I can polish it up a bit before publication.