Bonus Alpennia Post: Projecting a First Draft

I've demonstrated to my own satisfaction that, as long as I'm not out of town running off to conventions, I can hold to a writing pace of one chapter per week, even when I have no pre-existing draft text. I've completed 10 chapters of Mother of Souls. The outline (and this is a much more solid outline than what I started with for The Mystic Marriage, which ended up being expanded by four chapters) calls for a total of 33 chapters. (Wow, almost 2/3 done!) With 23 more to go, and subtracting out any weeks that I know I'll spend in transit, that brings me up to the first week of February. So I figure the end of February for initial revisions. Then two months for beta readers and incorporating their feedback, which brings us to the end of April. Plus a month or so for sloppage and poor estimations. I think I can sent in a proposal to my publisher that indicates a delivery date of the end of June and feel fairly confident about that.

Maybe I'll spend some time tomorrow drawing up the official proposal and outline.