As any professional author knows, before anyone else can get involved in making a manuscript into a book, the writer must first finish the manuscript. Tonight, that is what I have done, for what I think is maybe the 24th or 25th time. (I’ve lost count, to be honest.)

At 9:45PM EDT, I finished the first-draft manuscript of my next Star Trek novel, The Fall, Book III: A Ceremony of Losses. It weighs in at around 89,000 words long and is scheduled for publication in November of 2013.

That’s about all I know for certain about the book at this stage. I’m still too close to it to know if I like it, love it, hate it, or want to set it on fire and bury it alive in the moors. Time will tell (and if it doesn’t, my editors will—of that I have no doubt).

So, for tonight, I shall unwind with a nice snifter of single-malt scotch and maybe a movie. Tomorrow I will embark upon the arduous literary journey known as “the polishing draft.”

Until then, drink up me hearties!