431,522 words--DONE

It takes me a while to do things sometimes. I got the idea for the kernel of this SFF saga in the mid-1990s--I would guess 1996--but it wasn't until two decades later that I was finally able to put my thoughts to paper. It took me until August of 2023 to finish drafting, and it took me until now, April of 2025 to finish transcribing.

So this means the editing should be done before 2026...right? 

For the record, the time scale of letting a story percolate and then getting it down is basically the same for my last series, but move it back about a decade.

Most writers and artists wish for success not just so we can be comfortable but so we can have all of the uninterrupted time we need. Because while it isn't the worst thing in the world, having an idea, whether that's an image or a story, tormenting you for decades while you figure out how to literally manifest it is sometimes like having an itch to scratch that you can't quite reach. 

In a way, I envy people who can walk away--telling themselves they're not itchy anymore--but for me that was never an option. That's why I persisted with this project through a struggle with a family member's addiction, a pandemic, other family's mental health struggles, cancer, dementia in a family member, a suicide in the family, children going off to college, managing an adult sibling's care, and oh, yeah, the rise of fascism in my country, as well as the persistent environmental degradation of the planet. This series was supposed to be about history, but it is also about the present, reorganized, as we writers do, especially in the speculative genres. 

I'm taking at least a month off before I start editing this. My brain needs that. I took notes as I went, but I'm sure it's still going to be a bear. And it's not like I don't other things to keep me busy (see above paragraph). 

Part of me would have loved to have finished this in 2020, as I had originally hoped, but in some ways, it might have been a different story, because it took me about this long to figure out what this was *really* about. 

If only life worked the same way...that's part of why we write, isn't it?

Deb in the City