Thrilling Tales: Clockwork Book Update

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I don’t do a lot of analytical thinking about where a story is between its first draft and the point where the changes I can make aren’t making the story better any more. What I seem to get are these stages:

1. First Draft! Woooo!

2. OhMyGodWe’reAllGoingToDie

3. All done

Number 2 can go on for quite awhile.

But today The Lair of the Clockwork Book has come out of the OhMyGodWe’reAllGoingToDie stage and hovers at what I guess is about Step 2.9: I’ve made all the big changes, medium sized changes, and tiny polishing changes that I’ve ever meant to do. So the sensible thing is to leave it alone for a day and then give it another complete read-through (it’s always difficult to read it like I’ve never read it before) before what I think will be a final polishing stage. Of course, my mileage may vary.

But the upshot is that I’m now very close to the point where I can start in on the illustrations. Once I’ve got about 24 of those done the story can go live, a page at a time, at the Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual site. And I can then turn back to Part Two of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS – until I start to run low on Clockwork Book illustrations, anyhow.

The interesting ride that is that plan will be starting… sooner, now, if not yet soon.