I turned in the final draft of the last book of my trilogy last Monday.  I checked my email every hour for the next three days until my editor said he’d passed the book on to production.  No More Heroes is good to go.

The news made me feel lightheaded.  It’s strange to be out from beneath this pressure. I started No More Heroes the first week of February, directly after I turned in the final draft of Kill By Numbers.

At the time, I had an outline and the scene where Haoun, the lizard pilot, asks Raena to join him in a jet scooter race, a metaphor for how their relationship changes in this book.

Four months and 95,000 words later, I’m done.

I was in a daze pretty much all of last week.  I’ve been working on this story pretty much constantly since I got the editor’s notes on The Dangerous Type in October.  First thing in the morning, last thing before bedtime, weekends, holidays, school vacations… I gave up my column at Scoutie Girl in February and basically stopped blogging.  I have not written anything new, except for continuations of Raena’s story, in the last seven months.

I’m trying to shift gears, but it’s hard.  My editor would like me to write some short stories set in Raena’s universe.  I need to finish enough of the San Francisco pioneer cemeteries book that I can get the proposal out to publishers.  After that, I need to think about what my next novel might be.

In the meantime, I’d love to do a blog tour.  I’ve never done one before, but I’ve missed the guest blogging I used to do.  If you have a blog — about writing, about science fiction, about making your dreams come true — I would love to write for you.  You can comment below or use the Contact Me form on the tab above.

If you don’t have a blog, but have a question about writing, editing, women in science fiction (as creators or protagonists), please feel free to ask.  This has been such a ride.