It's the End of Draft One as You Know It!

....AND I FEEL FINE!!!! Exceedingly fine, to tell the truth. Draft One of Steam on the Horizon clocks in at 171,719 words and I finished it three days before my self-imposed deadline of November 30th. Granted, I have no idea how many of those 171,719 words are worth keeping, nor how many will be summarily eviscerated from the text with a bleeding red pen before the final version is ready for offering to the public, but that darned draft is done! 

It is rather timely that I finished it the day before I start back to work, this time waitressing at a local restaurant. If anything, the last three months of unemployment have allowed me ample time to crank out this draft. Hopefully the revising process will be relatively quick and smooth, but I have a nasty feeling it will be longer and more in-depth than I planned, especially because I am working so much history into this tale. I'd rather not have hordes of historians irate with me because I got some dates and facts wrong, so I will clearly be needing better research sources than Wikipedia, which incidentally has been enormously helpful during the writing process. 

Tomorrow, I will hie myself off to the local Kinkos and print out 225 pages of 10 point 1.5 spaced text because revision always goes better when you have a hard paper copy in your hands and an artillery belt of red pens at the ready. I do have a few people who want to be beta readers but seeing as I currently have a four page list of revisions I know I already want to make, it is probably best if I don't let any eyeballs but mine view the text until Draft 2 when major errors have been hunted down and illogical inconsistencies brought to heel. 

While I will likely be at work for it, the Steampunk Society of Nebraska will be doing annual steampunk caroling on December 7th with lovely choruses such as...

Gears and cogs, are a jingle'n
On the street, boiler's whistle'n
A beautiful sight
We're steamy tonight 
Walking in a Steampunk wonderland. 

You can see more lovely steampunk Christmas carol lyrics by liking the Steampunk Society of Nebraska Facebook page and going under their Files section to access the The Official Steampunk Carol List. I am thrilled to know that there are other creative souls out there that enjoy nothing more than mangling lyrics to suit their own twisted amusement. 

Speaking of which, I have the entire River Song' Song finished and my friend is working on a Companion song for our Dr Who musical, but in the interest of possible future performance, I want to keep my lyrics from the public eye. Maybe we can produce a couple YouTube videos for all to enjoy! I'd love to impersonate River Song on camera.