As we come to the the end of this full-grown, adult-size bang-a-roo headache of a year, we could use some good news, right? Well, here it is:
The manuscript is finished.
That’s right. The manuscript is finished. All 135,513 words of the first draft, covering from the arrival of the Garroways from Scotland to the 1983 memorial concert after his death, and everything in between.
The manuscript is now in the hands of my partners on the project, who are reviewing it and will get back to me with corrections and suggestions, which is what you need. For now, though, I’m still in a state of disbelief that it’s actually done – and a week ahead of schedule, no less.
There’s a lot left to go. I’ll have to make revisions, then edit those, and do a dozen other things before it’s all polished out. That’s not to mention finishing the endnotes, locating illustrations, finding a publisher who’s interested, and all of everything else. But those worries can wait. For now, it’s the relief of a huge task accomplished. Not a bad way to end a dumpster fire of a year, no?
This also will have some implications for the blog. Now that I have the manuscript done, and now that I know what fit the narrative and what had to be cut as seeming like trivia, I can write some posts based around those “cool items that had to be cut” and not worry so much about spoiling the book. So look for some interesting posts here soon.
In the meantime, thank you all for following along here, and thank you for your support of this whole effort. May all of you have a happy and healthy 2021 – and may this new year be infinitely better for all of us.