Zombie Ocean 3 finished!

Mike GristLife 1 Comment

Raise a glass of champagne, Zombie Ocean book 3 is finished!

It has been quite a slog, harder than any book to write since King Ruin. I had the story from the start, but having the story and having the story are two hugely different things. Making things line up straight and clear on weird terrain is way harder in reality than on the planning table.

But, I think it is strong. The ending took me completely by surprise- it is very different from what I had planned- so hopefully will be most unexpected for the reader too. That was very exciting to stumble upon/into. Of course now I see it is the right ending, and what I had been pointing at all this time. The original one- which took me this far- had always seemed so damn callous. But I needed the original to get to the new.

So many changes along the way.

I wrote a 10,000 word lead-in bit, all very Boyz N The Hood, which I cut completely. I ran down foggy, unclear plot avenues a host of times before having to back up for thousands of words and start again. Though the book right now stands at 79,000 words, which may shift some in editing, I probably wrote 120,000 in total, 40k of which are now on the cutting room floor: people being too psychopathic or not being psychopathic enough, flashbacks that were too maudlin, side stories that were too irrelevant, etc…

So! Now I edit, proof-read, and hopefully by end of the coming weekend send out to beta readers. The cover should be done, I’ll line up promotions, and then away we go, hopefully in time for a lovely, white Christmas. I may even blog a bit more, now the pressure is now somewhat off ;).

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