I am listening to James’ ‘Sit Down’ which was the song that was playing when I finished my very first novel (the terrible book about roleplayers which will never see the light of day) and which I’ve played for every first draft I’ve finished since.
This book. This infuriating book. I can’t tell you how much trouble I’ve had with it, or rather, I could, but you’d back slowly away from the arm-waving agitated woman. First I had to world-build several different galactic civilisations as well as the one I’ve already got going on Requite, then I got to 100 000 words and realised that one of the main characters was just too passive to do his part in shoving the story along, then I got to 100 000 words with the new main character and realised that what I needed was a very major subplot about the consequences of first contact set in a completely different Spire, and somewhere along the way I stopped and wrote 100 000 words of a completely different book because that seemed easier than performing open-plotline surgery on Heavy Ice yet again.
And then I wrote an outline for the remainder of the book, and repeatedly tore it up and rejigged it as I thought of something better, and this last week or so I’ve been running at 3000-5000 words a day as it unspooled in my head. Thank you to everyone who’s supported me through this process and everyone who’s expressed an interest in going back to Requite – you know who you are, and you know how grateful I am.
230 000 words (which will probably shrink in the editing, but I write long books. Live with it). 720 pages or so in the Lulu edition. Approximately a third as much plot as in the previous two Requite books but a whole lot more worldbuilding due more cultures getting involved. Also, the Order of the Neither are back, which always makes the plot more complicated.
Now it needs editing and a cover and wrangling into various e-reader formats, of course, but there will be a book that you can hold in your hands or your reading device of choice by the end of the year. I can’t wait for you to meet Kallisty and Raj and Strat and all the rest.
I know what my next project is, and it’s neither Requite nor Coranza. But I think before I make a start on that I’ll have a glass of wine and bother my purring eldercat for a while.
Ankaret Wells 
Fantastic! After all the challenge of the first part, it’s clearly come together amazingly.
I just wish I’d known what shape it was at the beginning. It would have saved SO MUCH angst.
Well done! Getting to the end is always worth celebrating but some books deserve a lot more celebration than others.
Thank you! This one has been particularly like dragging a large angry cave-bear backwards out of an inconveniently small cave.