It's coming

I know I promised certain old friends I know read this they'd get a look at the manuscript I've been shopping around a while right after I'd done some necessary work on it, and that it shouldn't take too long. This is just to say to you folk: it's coming, I'm sorry it's taken longer than I told you.

There's a type of dialogue in it that's particularly labour-intensive—in which one of the speakers is learning a language, and that language doesn't, actually, exist, so keeping it believable in these scenes is serious work—half the work's keeping the language itself believable, half is the usual complicated method acting of trying to keep speakers in character—in this case in a situation in which mutual comprehension between the speakers is particularly constrained, and the POV character itself is having a hell of a time working out what's going on. Work on that stuff is proving painfully slow. And while I've finally settled on some of the larger structural issues I'd identified some weeks back, working the necessary modifications smoothly back into the narrative is delicate work.

Another week, probably, before I've got the still rough but cohesive long version I'm happy to let a few eyes view. Provided I stay healthy this time.