Late Saturday night I finished implementing all the edits from the beginning to end read-through, before sending the manuscript back to Kerry for a second pass. At this point The Last Track is in her able hands. Though I’m not sure exactly when she might finish, a matter my instructions no doubt greatly frustrated, unless Divine Intervention smites me, the agent will have the manuscript for further consideration before I leave for Moscow in late December.

The nicest thing about finishing up is that I can work on something else. And oh man, do I need to disappear in a new project. God damn. It’s been nearly four years since I started the novel once known as Velocity, the sequel to an unfinished manuscript I walked away from to protect my sanity. Yeah, I don’t feel old reading the previous sentence, I swear.

And now a beer before bed…or I’ll have dreams of Kerry’s pen dicing the pages like this:

While tending shop at work recently, in the last hour of the day an unexpected proposition came by the phone. Last April my boss sold a non-fiction project for a six-figure advance to a major publisher, and it’s shipping in March. Now is the time to think about promotion, because one thing I learned from Editor person, after release a book has three weeks to grow legs and walk away or the publisher loses interest and yanks publicity–if there was ever a publicity plan in the first place. The corollary to that: the fate of a marketing effort is determined 90 days before a title ships. In other words, the battle is won or lost before the first sword is drawn. Very Sun Tzu, these publishers.

Anyway, the conversation went something like…

“We’re looking for someone to grow the online awareness of the book, and get it blogged about. Know anyone that can do this?”

To which I answered, “Let me sleep on that and get back to you.”

And right now, I’m about to sleep on it and make a decision.