Typed up the antepenultimate chapter this afternoon. Was so excited about being so close to the end I also ended up writing the penultimate chapter out by hand, about 2500 words, in a single sitting with barely moving because it was so close.

Tomorrow I’ll type up what I wrote today, and maybe, just maybe, write up the very last chapter as well.

That would then give me a week to type it up, as well as to make the novel “not broken.” (There are some plot things that must be fixed before I send it off to first readers.)

So close. So very, very close.

I’m not sure what the final word count will be. I’d been thinking 85,000. Now that I’m so close to finishing, I’m figuring it’ll be closer to 80,000, possibly only 75,000. We’ll see. Depends on how long those last chapters actually are, and how much I add making things not broken.

In the meanwhile, I’m currently taking a class in book cover design. I am learning so much. I’m adding a mock up of the new cover for “Clockwork Kingdom” which I think is SO MUCH BETTER than the current cover.

The new one is both more professional, as well as more “fantasy.”

And here’s the original cover, just for comparison: