A few weeks back, late one night, at three minutes to nine in the evening, I wrote the last word in the epilogue for Emma Warwick Mystery Book 2, A Will to Murder.

 

Yes, I’m a night owl—guilty as charged.

 

The word count for my revised first draft is 58,239, making it a full-length book that will probably have 230-ish pages, including the front and back matter. So it will be a little over three times the size of A First Edition Felony.

 

According to my super-detailed daily writing habit spreadsheet, I’ve been working on this on and off since I first wrote the opening beat for chapter one way back on the 7th of May 2023. Yes, you read that year correctly; it’s not a typo.

 

In the spirit of disclosure, I’m that author who has multiple pen names, thus multiple books on the go. As you know, I’ve also written and published A First Edition Felony and A Fatal Steeping during this time, plus two others under a second pen name.

 

But for me at least, this feels like a monumental milestone.