UPDATE: Now with 30 Chapters

GRACE AMONG THE DEAD Stats as of 1325 MDT, 28 May 2014:
30 chapters; 268 pages, 95,439 words.  The numbers went up a smidge, which almost never happens when I'm editing.

I finally got going on the read-through the night before last. I was up until 6:15, the sun already warming the earth as I wrapped the pillow around my head and lapsed into unconsciousness.

I did something I sorta-kinda suspected I was going to do, but didn’t think would happen: I wrote Chapter 30. It was only three pages and some 900 words, but it tied off some loose ends, pointed the narrative towards its sequel, and amplified the tone I wanted to set. It was getting a little kumbaya-corny at the end of Chapter 29, and we don’t go riding off into the sunset in my books. We disappear into the night. Or into an approaching storm.

Last night I found myself writing a scene into the penultimate chapter. Something of a love scene, involving choking. Not that kind of choking (what is up with that degeneracy?), but the experience sets the stage for a relationship that will be central to the third book.

With those two strokes the book feels almost really finished. That is not to say I was lying when I first said Grace Among the Dead was finished. It is. I could email the manuscript to Severed Press right now and it would still be a better written zombie apocalypse adventure the 95% of what’s out there.

Right now, I’ll say it’s better than 97%. I’ll give myself until the end of the day to beat the 99%. After that, it’s ready or not, off you go. I’m stoked to start my untitled third book and that’s a very, very good sign.

About time y’all caught up.