Well, it's been forever and a day, but I've finally updated the website with the current word count for Merriweather's Guide. There's not a lot else to say. It's the curse of getting old—well, older anyway. I simply don't have the time or energy to update the site more.
Updated word count is based on the current version of the text, and I do not anticipate any more changes. It's time to start working on the layout of the dead-tree version.
Biggest difference between this book and all previous novels that I've done is this one has actually been reviewed by an honest to God professional copy editor. No, seriously, I paid him and everything. Okay, technically, I still have to mail the check, but that's on my to-do list.
This represents a radical change in my writing process. That dreaded day job of mine—after fifteen plus years, goddamnit—is finally paying me enough I feel like I can afford extravagant little things like a freaking copy editor. For the first time ever, someone beside myself is taking a critical eye to the text before it is unleashed on an indifferent and uncaring populous.
I've even taken a whole bunch of his suggestions to heart like being less averse to commas. I am, however, ignoring the vast majority of his suggestions when it comes to things like use of sentence fragments and dialogue tags. So grammar die-hards are still going to hate me.
I just wanted to avoid another Tourist Hunter situation. That turkey went out with so many typos and mistakes, I'm still mortified and embarressed just thinking about it. Ugh.