“And” we haz a cover! (UK-Aus-NZ)

‘Great’ as in 3 weeks and 3 days of unremitting slog, at any rate! 😀

And during that time I not only agonised over comma placement (yeah, “I know”), but (far more importantly) rumbled an important “time and geography” issue, rousted out a potential deus ex machina, and resolved innumerable small scale, but nonetheless important, matters of logic, and sense, and continuity, all of which seem to have consequentials (grrgh-aargh.)

Not to mention patiently checking facts, both within my own creation, the Haarth world (more continuity), but also in terms of background research into a diverse range of areas, including weapons and warfare, different aspects of weather, and wounds, injuries and credible medical responses to the same. To name but a few.

And I wrote one new chapter, which I have to say, I think is “brill”—i.e. it gave me quite a sense of satisfaction, because it not only adds to the overall coherence of this book, but also better enables keeping a number of minor characters as a consistent—albeit still minor– plot/character(s) thread running through the WALL series. So yahoo for that, say I. 😉

But, BUT, now ’tis done. I have not only logged out of the Chicago Manual of Style, but hope to stay logged out for some time. I have also closed down Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary—although probably only very temporarily!

But as I mentioned a few weeks back, the really cool thing about waving goodbye to the copyedit for Daughter Of Blood, is that:

“…the copyedit is also the milestone after which I really feel freed up — to concentrate fully on the next book. In this case … that book is The Chaos Gate (working title), otherwise known as The Wall Of Night, Book Four.

And as we all know, The Wall Of Night Book Four is also the final book in the WALL series.”

But first of all, a little bit of r’n’r to get my head out of Daughter of Blood before I really focus on The Chaos Gate.