It’s only been about 10 years, but look! A finally-finished first draft of a book. My book. (Well, my second, anyway.)

I honestly don’t remember how long it’s taken me to get this far. I know I was working on this when Katy died in 2001, but was I working on it when I got her in 1999? I’m pretty sure I was, but don’t have any proof.

Except … according to my reading list, I read J. Winocour’s “Story of the Titanic” in February 1998, and Stephen Cox’s “Titanic Story” in October 1999, and since reading is one of my favorite forms of research, that seems a good sign.  Not to mention that there is a sudden rush of “how to get your book published” books in 1998, and since I started this one after I finished my first one, 1998-1999 sounds about right.

So … ten years.

This isn’t saying that the book is DONE, mind you. Oh, no. Lots of work to be done! This is just the first draft, but considering I was stymied for something like 6 years with a 1912-era legal dilemma that I couldn’t find an answer to, getting the story all the way through to the end … no matter how rough and bumpy it might be along the way … is a huge accomplishment.

As of right now, it’s 82,714 words, 289 pages long. Phew!

Next up? Reading it through and figuring out what I need to do to make it perfect, then I can try to get IT published, too. Because it’s not enough fun getting rejection letters for one manuscript, it’ll be twice as much fun with two (grin). The first change? The address on the first page. That’s kind of changed since I started this.

I’m making knitting progress, too. Here’s my Redhook, coming along nicely. It’s about ten inches long at this point. This is the entire sweater, here–fronts and back all together, so the rows are longish, but progress is being made.

And look at this little sneak. He stole his grandmother’s slipper … out of her closet … off the shoe rack … and decided to use it as a pillow while he waited for her to come upstairs and play the “Look What I’ve Got” game.

Speaking of coming upstairs, I was sitting here on the computer before and got an email, a tweet, and a direct message from my mom who was allllll the way downstairs, asking for help with her computer. Instead of trying to yell up two flights.

Yay for computers.

So, otherwise? I’ve been working hard on getting my “end of year” posts ready. Those are a lot of work! All those links. You’ll have to wait a couple days to see the one here, but..

Click here for a year’s worth of Knitting Book reviews at Knitting Scholar.

And, some of my favorite posts of the year from Punctuality Rules.

• Tags: General, Knitting/Spinning • Permalink:82,714 Words // 5 Comments »