I mean, there are a couple of rants, but I haven't the mental energy for them yet. All my brain power is turned currently towards my current work in progress.
It really will be the shortest novel I've ever written. I'll be surprised if I even get to 80K words. I'm split in two minds about this. On the one hand, I have a strong belief that a story should only be as long as it needs to be. Any longer and it feels forced. Readers aren't dumb. They can tell. But I'm also feeling weird about this lower than normal word count. I've got to shake that feeling. I know it is neither warranted, nor rational. It does make me think, though. Primarily, it makes me think about my writing hang-ups.
Of which I have many.
Given the word count, and the youth of one of the protagonists, I would peg this one as a young adult novel. Odd, for me, given how little of those I've read. Happily, though, and in large part due to Tamora Pierce's work (specifically The Provost's Dog series... highly recommend), I'm well over the weird prejudice I had against young adult books.
There's a blog post idea to file away for another day.
I expect that I will be finished this one in the next fortnight or so. There will be much celebrating when I write 'The End' on this one.
After this, I have the second book of The Great Man series, Outcast, to rewrite. Then the second book in the Avalon series. It's March now, and if Outcast is as difficult to write as Soldier was, then I expect it'll take me the rest of the year. However, if it goes smoothly, there might be a chance that I will get them both done (HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!). Four books in a year? That's a little ambitious, even for me. I once managed three. That was a good year.
Anyway, since I've got so much work ahead of me, I had better go do it.
Ciao!