Done!:-)

Hi guys!

Well, it is with great pride that I am reporting that I have just finished writing the first draft of Time of your Life. I completed the first version of the epilogue earlier this week, with the firm hope to revise it and get the "final" version ready by today. So I'm happy to report that the epilogue is now complete, hence bringing Time of your Life to a satisfying ending.

It's always with mixed emotions that I reach the end of a writing project. Indeed, there is something inexplicably special about moving a story forward. Of course, I have multiple rewrites ahead of me. But the true writing endeavor is concluded. The job now shifts to an overall polishing project.

Hard to believe that Time of your Life only took about 13 months to write from start to finish. After all, my previous manuscript, The Eye of the Serpent, took about 4 years to produce. The funny thing is that I didn't even know if I had enough material to come up with a novel. All the key scenes were already scrawled down in a pad I carried with me throughout my 2004 summer-long exile in Europe. For some reason, although I knew I needed to write this story, it still took me 10 months to finally sit down and begin work on the backpacking trip which would become Time of your Life. And because I did wait that long, I had everything -- or so I thought -- figured out before I wrote the first line of the preface. But like all backpacking adventures, there were quite a few unanticipated twists and turns along the way. Yet, with all the key scenes clearly established in my mind, the manuscript basically wrote itself.

Which brings us here, October 2006. Even though I was wondering if all my ideas could build the foundation of a sound novel when I started working on the manuscript in August 2005, Time of your Life weighs in at 141, 000 words and 393 pages. Not bad at all. . .;-)

Tad Williams' agent has accepted to take a look at it, in addition to reviewing a submission of The Eye of the Serpent. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Wish me luck, you guys!:-) Signed copies for everyone, if they ever get published!!!

After working for over a year on this project, it's time to set it aside for a while. I want to peruse The Eye of the Serpent, to ascertain myself that it's still to my liking, before I send it along to the literary agency. After that will come the first of what will likely be a number of rewrites of Time of your Life. And then, well I'll be hoping that either or both manuscripts will be picked up and sold to publishers!;-)

Many thanks to everyone who offered feedback when I posted those few sample chapters earlier this summer. Every comment will receive due consideration when the time for the rewrites comes. . .

Working on Time of your Life was an eye-opener for me. I had always thought that genre fiction was the only niche in which I could work comfortably. It seems that I might be a little more versatile than I ever thought possible!

Best of luck in all your writing endeavors!:-) Keep working hard. Keep believing in yourself. Because at this point -- as an aspiring writer -- if you don't believe in yourself and your work, nobody will.

Patrick