For the last four months Eleven Twelve (the Halloween edition) has been dominating my life. The finished version is a long way from the first final draft which went to my long-suffering alpha readers who both said um, NO.
Oh.
They both said (and they don’t usually agree on anything) was that their main concern is that the book steps right out of the established series, and they couldn’t see how I could get back to finishing the series in its usual comfortable format afterwards.
The only way round that was to publish it as a Halloween edition. That solved that problem, and cheered the alpha readers up, but created a fairly considerable new one—Halloween was only six weeks away, the book still had to be beta read, pulled into final shape, edited, tweaked a little more, it wasn’t possible. On the other hand, since I write novellas, and pop one out two to three times a year, waiting for Halloween 2015 wasn’t really an option either.
Five of my wonderful beta readers stepped up to the plate at short notice. I recruited three new absolute crackers, one of them a powerhouse from ALLi (no pressure there, then), and two lovely series regulars said they’d be interested in beta-reading. My editor promised me a time-slot on 20th October and suddenly we were green for go.
Long story short: it’s done. Loaded, minutes before the witching hour —hah, because Eleven Twelve has witches, and chapter headings from Macbeth, and is a definite eye-opener for Edge and co. It was riotous fun to write and some readers will love it, and some will probably disapprove completely. The beta readers all finished it, and all had strong, ultimately positive, feedback, which was wonderful. Anyway, as soon as I have the published link I will start pushing it like crazy. This is just a brief blog to say this is one major reason I have been virtually invisible for months, and I am so looking forward to resuming normal life from tomorrow.
Oh, and the series returns to normal with the next book. Promise.
Quite Contrary 
Well done! Even if you have had some…ahum…issues since which I hope you are making progress on getting sorted out. I’m amazed at the short timespan you’ve turned this out in – very impressive!
Oh thanks, and finally sorted, and what a mission it was, but I did get the publication date I needed – probably in the dying seconds of the night! As for the timespan, most writers work on a book a year but think of the length of a book as opposed to a novella? For me, novellas take about 6 months from first serious draft to final publication, but they do overlap each other a bit 🙂 – while one is with beta readers, the next is approaching first draft and about to go into the dark for a month. Planning a bit of a break, though, now, it has been a very hectic few years!
Ooooh can’t wait….well done
Hehe (I wish I knew how to write a cackle) thank you!
Shot! as they say here in SA! Meaning ‘well done’, ‘congrats’, and may the witching hour be upon you bringing magic stardust to send book on its way!
Yup, plenty of magic stardust would be WONDERFUL! Thanks!