For the past two months now, ever since I became agented with the amazing Ms. Colleen, I've been plowing my way through my young-adult, contemporary fantasy novel. This is the book formerly known as The Last of the Hand. Now, it's exactly two months to the day since signing with Colleen, and I'm this close to finishing up the pretty massive overhauling of the book.

And the new title is -- with all apologies to my writing pal Ekaterina Sedia for the similarity to her awesome book -- The Secret History of Magic.

The plan had always been to finish the book by the end of July, and then we'd send it out to some editors. I was on pace to hit this goal, but then I hit a wall with some of the structuring of the book (I was a little sloppy with my previous version!), and then the real world intruded (i.e., the Day Job!).

So I'm down to the last six chapters -- chapters 19-24. And I want to be done before our trip to Iowa, at least with all the big, heavy lifting parts.

Here's the catch: we leave on... Sunday. Doh!

Here's my plan, devised with the support of my lovely wife ('cause I always need a plan):

• Mon - finish ch. 18, draft 1/2 of ch. 19!
• Tues - finish drafting and revising chs. 19-20
• Wed - revise ch. 21
• Thurs - revise ch. 22
• Fri - revise ch. 23
• Sat - revise ch 24, epilogue, done!!!

It's a plan, at least. I think it's worth a try... I already finished up chapter 18 this morning. Feel free to cheer me on and/or throw things at me in the Comments section! Later!