I can see the end! It's so close!

Remember when I talked about how all The Darkest Gate needed was a little polishing, and that there was no way I would start over from scratch on it?

Bwahahahaha.

Elise would laugh at my optimism.
Except she never smiles.

You're probably worrying right about now that I've started over on the book (again) and that this is an announcement about how it's not coming out until 2017. But never fear! I already started over on it months ago, so it's actually pretty close to finished. For realsies this time.

That said, there are maybe five scenes in the entire book that have survived from the last draft. (And that's probably a very generous number.) Writing the same book two or three times is exhausting. It's much, much better for the attention, but I am stinking burned out.

My exhaustion isn't just because of the UTTERLY INSANE writing pace I've set for myself in the last year, either. I stepped back, took a long view of the series, and made a few hard editorial decisions that were physically painful. Some of it was minor--deciding not to introduce certain characters, removing subplots, adding new ones--but some were major. As in, killing off major characters major. I'm still having random crying jags over one scene. (Don't judge me! I get really attached to my characters.)

This book has been through quite a journey, but I feel like it's much stronger for it. And the long road is coming to an end.

I don't have a specific date yet, but I can definitely tell you this book will be out by the end of May 2012. So hold onto your falchions! It's only a few weeks away...