Robert J. Sawyer

Hugo and Nebula Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer

Rollback done!

by Rob - April 25th, 2006.
Filed under: Uncategorized.

Today, Monday, April 24, 2006, I finished final revisions on my seventeenth novel, Rollback. I started the book on Monday, May 16, 2005 (just shy of one year ago), and did a total of six drafts. Unusually for me, the book got shorter as time went on — I cut 10,000 words while preparing the fourth draft.

  • First draft Friday, November 18, 2005: 93,857 words
  • Second draft Monday, November 28, 2005: 94,823 words
  • Third draft Wednesday, December 14, 2005: 94,668 words
  • Fourth draft Monday, January 16, 2006: 84,678 words
  • Fifth draft Sunday, February 26, 2006: 83,858 words
  • Sixth draft Monday, April 24, 2006: 84,007 words

Analog will serialize the whole novel starting in its October 2006 issue (on sale August 1st), and Tor will publish the book in hardcover in eleven months’ time (the official pub date is April 1, 2007).

As I said, Rollback is my 17th novel. In additon, I’ve edited four anthologies and done three collections of my shorter work (the third of which will be published next year), so this means I’ve now finished my 24th book.

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