Well, The House of Snow and Apples, Book Two of The Winter King, is complete as a first draft at 39,000 words. I just typed the last line. It took me longer to get to the end, and the story is much longer than I initially estimated. Certainly, when I started the story in mid-January I did not expect it to be any longer than 25,000 words, at most.
I’ll print out a copy tomorrow and start the first edits. I’ve been reading and editing as I’ve been writing, so the editing process should (hopefully) not be too arduous. I might even end up with something like a finished manuscript sometime in the next 2-3 weeks.
I’ve been playing around with colouring my little practise pencil sketch in Corel Paint too. I’ve attached an image of where I am at now. A long way from finished, but it is starting to develop.