Ssshhhh...

I've been dinking around with the manuscript long enough. I'm in the process of printing copies for the beta readers, and the printer was apparently having performance anxiety because it kept trying to shoot the pages onto the floor. I finally got the little extender piece figured out, though, and it seems to be cooperating now. It's going to be a tired little printer before it's all said and done. I have to say that buying a laser printer was a very smart thing to do. When I printed copies of "The Dragon's Lady" it was on a Desk Jet that could only manage 25 pages at a time without freaking out. If I told it to print the whole thing, it printed pages 1, 2, 3, and 10. Talk about a printer that needed babysitting. I'd lose my mind if I had the printer now--I have five manuscripts to print.

The story has shaken out thus far at just shy of 137,000 words. I've managed to finagle that into 268 very legible pages, but of course it will be more when it's formatted for the actual book. We'll see what happens when I get beta copies back.

Closer To Done

I finished the on-screen edit of Sword and Scabbard today while I was sitting around in a waiting room, and I had extra time so I worked on the long proposal, too. Tomorrow I'll print the manuscript, give it a quick read-through, and make copies for my beta readers. Such a relief! Next projects are the edit on Rogue Pawn, finishing the Sword and Scabbard proposal, and figuring out who to send the proposal to. I'm open to suggestions there.

It's the last week of school, and I'm trying to figure out how it happened. Vicky's Freshman year was much less dramatic than Alex's was. Next year we have driver's training to look forward to again. Can't wait. Really.