Some TOTK news... finally

I'm very nervous, but excited.

I just came from the FedExKinko's website where I clicked "send" to have them print and bind Draft #4 of Thorn of the Kingdom. (Remembering how many hours and paper jams it took to print out Draft #3, I decided the 400-some pages were best left to the pros. Plus, this way I get a cardstock cover with my title page printed on it! I'm enough of a nerd to be excited about that.)

Now, this may not seem like great news on the grand scale of things, but it feels like major progress for me. My original goal was to have this draft done last September, before I started my first semester of grad school. Then, I was to have it done by New Year's and that didn't happen either.

DRAFT #4 IS FINALLY DONE!!! I want to shout it out from the rooftops.

I feel as close as I've ever been to having THE definitive draft that's going out to agents/publishers. However, part of the reason I always want a new printout when I get to the end of major revisions is that I want to set it aside for a while and then come back to it as if I'm reading a fresh book. That's when all the grammar mistakes and sentence structure problems come flying out at me.

But I'm finally satisfied on all the plot points. This is the version I'm going to let my family read. (It's been 4+ years and they still have only seen bits and pieces. My 90-something grandmother was getting anxious...)