If it’s possible, I love Elynn a little more. Here’s the final cover for The Last Track:

Reviewing the final proof tonight of The Last Track before it’s uploaded to Ingram, Amazon and elsewhere. If everything goes well, the book will be available for sale exactly as scheduled, marking the end of the beginning of a multi-year saga. Been wrestling with variants of these characters for what seems like forever. Soon others can deal with them.

For those who read review copies, the final product is pretty much the same with  some very stringent typographical corrections ( thanks, Kerry ), slightly larger margins at the top and bottom, plus a change to the ending. A very slight refinement, consisting of five new lines and the removal of one. The ultimate finish is more shocking, yet at the same time more credible given the character development.

The last revision has a legacy of sorts. Often suspected the final reveal would turn out this way, but every time the manuscript moved past another hurdle, I decided against making the change. When the publisher had that “you know, everything else is working for me, but there’s something bothering me about the ending” conversation, it was time to put instincts before stubbornness.

Only four people have read the new ending, which is cool for me, because despite the fact the story has been circulating among small groups of readers over its years of evolution, there is one last surprise for the faithful.

And a very big surprise for uninitiated.

Still have a ways to go  with the aesthetics, but getting much closer with a new look for 2010. A new beginning. More to come in the next few days. Honest!

Going to update the look and feel of the site in bits and pieces over the next few days, so please patient if something breaks that always worked before. Trust me, I’m on it.

This week Kerry reviews the final PDF before the first edition of The Last Track heads to printer. Made the final tweaks and insertions a day before the publisher emailed the files her way. By the 29th whatever corrections Kerry makes will be implemented in the source files. That still leaves some work from the graphic artist to the front and rear cover–something about templates for formatting images for rendering. But in essence, the book will be “done”. And then the selling/marketing starts. Oh, and making some headway on the sequel.

More posts will follow this week, and I resolve to be much more consistent about updates in 2010.