It’s done! (Well, mostly.)

This draft of The Marigold Miracle is done!

Well, mostly.

It’s not the final draft, but it is the draft that has all its moving parts—or, at least, most of them. If someone read this particular draft, they could follow the story. I filled in all the missing scenes, wrote a new beginning, and picked up where I left off with the epilogue.

In the previous draft, I stopped writing in the middle of that epilogue. Yes, really! It was in my head, the last line in particular, so it didn’t really matter if it was on the page.

What comes next? I’m going to run a spellcheck, since when I draft, I never use spelling or grammar checking or turn on anything that provides “helpful” hints. (And Copilot is even more annoying than Clippy.)

After that, I’ll put it in manuscript format and then let it rest.

For how long? I’m not sure. I’m thinking between four and eight weeks. Then I’ll print that monster and do a paper edit.

And it is a monster of a story: 160,000 words, y’all.

This is the longest book I’ve ever written, beating The Pansy Paradox by 20,000 words. I did add a point of view (Marigold’s) and wrote a new beginning, so this makes sense.

I will streamline things in the edit, but I know my writing process well enough to know that I won’t move the needle that much. I tend to streamline and cut in one place only to add in another.

But for now? It. Is. Done.

Well, mostly.