400!

I just got to p. 400 on the manuscript of my WIP, and on the exact deadline I'd given myself! Woohoo! That's almost exactly 89,000 words by MS Word's count, FWIW.

So, my next goal is to finish my first draft by August 15. A little while back, when I hit p. 300, I hoped to have the manuscript submission-ready by Labor Day, but I've since realized that's unrealistic. This book needs SERIOUS editing to be the best I'm capable of making it. I've got research to do, I've got to make some decisions about the backstory of my alternate world set-up and how much of it to reveal, I need to make sure my protagonist actually has a character arc (right now I'm afraid he's every bit as resolute and heroic when we meet him on p. 3 as he is on p. 400, and that won't do), I need to fix the story logic of my main subplot, etc. I'm thinking that's more like 3 months' work than 3 weeks', so my new tentative goal for being really and truly DONE is 12/31. But I may revise that up or back by a month or two as I go along.

Still. 400 pages. I'm most of the way there. And I got my feedback forms today for the Pacific NW Writers Association Literary Contest (I'm one of the finalists in science fiction/fantasy). It's almost 100% positive. One of my judges wants me to concentrate on adding more description and sensory detail, which is a fair point. That's one of my weaknesses. But s/he also praised my story hook, admired my pacing and imagery, and said s/he looked forward to reading the entire book. The second judge seemed to love everything, and I'm gloating over comments like "A real cause. A real protagonist, super antagonists, wonderful game of 'what if?'"

They liked me, they really liked me! ::bounce bounce bounce::