FInishing Empire Of Bones

Writing those lovely words: The End, to finish off my Empire Of Bones series was an incredible feeling.

But there were mixed emotions.

Of course I was delighted, and relieved, and proud of finishing a series that has sold so well, received so many glowing reviews and has occupied my thoughts for nearly four years now.

According to the Microsoft Word stats, I spent a total of 104,513 minutes working on Wall Of Spears. That’s more than 1741 hours, or about 72 days straight.

And that was the book that took me the least amount of time, with the least number of rewrites of the three!

Altogether it is a frightening total, and does not include the time spent reading hard copy printouts, either, nor thinking time. That is purely fingers-to-keyboard minutes.

And while it's now sitting in HarperCollins' hands, it's not quite finished yet. There is still the production process to go through.

The publisher might suggest some tweaks, as will the copy editor, while the proof readers are sure to find something.

Still, finishing it to that level was very satisfying.

But I was a little sad, as well. These are characters I know well and it is sad to be saying goodbye to them, even though their journey is over and they are in a better place than when they started (except for the dead ones, obviously …!)

It is time to start thinking about the next journey to take.

And it is not a decision to be taken lightly. This last series took three years of my life. I expect any new series to occupy a similar time frame – or perhaps longer.

More on that shortly.