Last night I finished writing the first draft of the novel I've been working on for over four years. (Well, three full years, plus some gaps and the initial period of not knowing whether this would be a novel or something else.) I knew I was near the end, and had concrete plans to finish within a couple weeks, for reasons I'll discuss later, but as I sat at our new dining table around 10:30 last night I realized that I was already there: this was where the story of Anacleto and Agnese Stornello ended. It was a strange, surprising feeling; I felt, and still feel, more dazed than celebratory.
I'm not completely done, of course. I intend to do some editing before I make any attempts to get it published, there's an epilogue waiting to be written, and, since I read so many great books during the course of writing this novel, I'm going to provide a bibliography, too.
The working title is The Peregrinations of Anacleto Stornello, which I'm not sure I like enough to keep, but I can't think of anything better for the time being. The title's a nod to the Peregrinação of Fernão Mendes Pinto, though the story is considerably different (while also bearing some similarity, seeing as how they're both travel tales). It spans the years 1528-1531 and covers a number of places, ranging from Venice and Syria to India and Indonesia.
On one hand, I've had my fill of this project, but I also can't wait to polish it and see if it sells; at the moment, however, I think I'll let all thoughts of it settle to the bottom of my skull and focus my attention elsewhere, like Liam Matthew Brockey's excellent book The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia.
Later, dudes.
D.A.S.
