It’s done. Blade and Crescent, my sexually explicit dark fantasy novella, has a complete first draft (running at just over 21,000 words). To be honest, it’s a bit of a mess, and like The Hypernova Gambit, I don’t know how much rewriting it’s going to need beyond the all-purpose “lots and lots and lots.” I’ve also come to a realisation that while I’ve got a natural inclination towards “going dark” (I once tried to think up a children’s drama series, and within a couple of days the story had gotten to a messed-up and all-out horror level that was rather difficult to believe), but I think I’m actually at my best when I’m blending that with a general attitude of silliness. The Hypernova Gambit is damned silly in places, but it’s also dark – and I think that’s where I want to be. That, and the fact that I’ve really got no interest in doing something that’s exactly like everything else– I want to be proud of it, but I also want to be able to look at it and know there really isn’t anything else like it out there. I don’t know if just getting this thing down on paper is all I needed to do, and whether I can leave it now, or if it’ll be worth the serious effort that rewriting will entail. For the moment, just having finished is enough. I’ll leave working out what to do next for tomorrow…