Finished the Maze. Again.

This has been about the 132nd time in my life that I thought I was done with a little book called THE MAZE RUNNER. It's amazing how many loops this story has gone through on its journey to publication. It'll be a fun topic for future writer's conferences.

Anyway, with great relief, I emailed the manuscript to Krista today. I have no doubt that the last 2 weeks have been the most grueling I've ever had in terms of pure nitty gritty working on a book. I'm not asking for pity - I enjoyed it for the most part. But it was intense.

You'd probably be somewhat impressed if someone wrote 15,000 words in 2 weeks. If not, you have an avocado for a brain. But not only did my manuscript increase by 15,000 words, it was done in bits and pieces, here and there as I went through Krista's notes, page by page. No wonder I had a head ache every night!

But I'm really surprised how much I enjoyed doing it. Some days were tougher than others, but the lessons I learned from Krista are just amazing. And the book is much, much better now.

The very first version of MAZE was 68,000 words long. When I turned it into Krista in September, it was 87,000 words. The one I submitted today is 102,000. That means the book is 50% bigger than its original version. That blows me away.

The biggest difference is DEPTH. The basic storyline hasn't changed that much. But the depth of the characters, the depth of the worldbuilding, the depth of the dialogue and scene development, the depth of everything is just more... in depth. How's that for articulatregery? I just made that word up, and yes, you have permission to use it.

Ah, I feel so good. Tomorrow my family and I head off to Georgia for a 2 week vacation with Georgia Grandma and the rest of the Dashner Crime Family. I've sworn off any booky type work unless Krista gets back to me with more revisions, in which case I will abandon my mother and work like a... worker bee. (Mmmm, more good articulatregery. Oh, and just kidding, Mom.) But I think it will be mostly R&R.

Well, I hope all is well, and for your personal safety, I truly hope you are not a turkey this time of year. See ya again soon!

P.S. A big congratulations to my awesome agent, Michael Bourret. He was recently promoted to be the Vice President of his agency, Dystel & Goderich. I'm honored to be his client!