Project Timeline 22nd September 2011 With  NaNoWriMo looming,  I decided to give it a try for my first time. While I'm not normally a planner, normally being a pantzer, to make sure I gave NaNoWrimo a good go, I joined a course  with the New Horizons  Academy on Writing.com.  This group forced me to plan ahead for NaNoWriMo. Starting with research into the genre. Which I began on this date. So the project started here. Research was long hard and tedious. I had to read "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers, followed by "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. I followed those with a book of Sherlock Holmes stories, Journey to the center of the Earth, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras and a few by H G Wells. What can I say, the job of a writer is tough. 18th October 2011 This is the date I first came up with general story idea.  A short one page  overview. As for the inspiration, Loki has been given a lot of stick recently in film and media and I just felt sorry for him. I thought it would be nice to make him the good guy for once. I mean, after all, a world with no chaos or unpredictability at all would be real boring and would have no freedom. Is that the world you want to live in, 'cause I don't. 26th October 2011 This is the day I wrote a few really basic character profiles, along with compiling a list of historical figures I wanted to include. Top of my list was Leonardo Da Vinci and Isambard Kingdom Brunel along with the Akhenaten the hieratic pharaoh, doesn't take much to see there is a story there.  1st November 2011 The first day of NaNoWriMo. and the start of the writing process. My aim throughout the month was to write 2000 words per day which , on average, I stuck to. 31st November 2011 By the end of NaNoWriMo I had just over 60,000 words. 10,000 more than was needed but I wanted to finish in style. 1st April 2013 After NaNoWriMo the half finished first draft sat on my computer, untouched for a year and a half while I worked on other projects. I chose to go back to it over the easter weekend 2013. Hopefully Sam from Kristell Ink isn't reading or this or has become bored and stopped reading by this point. Otherwise she might notice that this day, the 1st of April, was the day I sent Kristell Ink the first three chapters of a supposedly completed manuscript. In reality it was a ploy to get myself to finish the novel by setting a definitive deadline. I chose Kristell Ink as a fellow member of the Coffee Shop of the Fantasy had just been published through them, Deb E Howell. I took a look at the website and Kristell Ink seemed a perfect fit for me as it specialises in Fantasy, Steampunk and Sci-fi, all the genres I write in, and there are some other authors there who are also artists, so I felt I had some things in common.   My thinking in this admitably harebrained scheme was that the worse case scenario, even if I got a rejection back, I would still have a completed manuscript and therefore it was a win win situation.  Plus the novel was started as a NaNoWriMo project and written at a fast pace, so it seemed the right way to finish it. See perfectly logical... That's it back away from the screen slowly, maybe I won't notice. 14th April 2013 By this point I had 20,000 of the needed 30,000 words written and as I was closeish to the end I decided to relax a bit and slow the pace. I knew I could push 10,000 words in a single weekend. I was also starting to lose my sanity at only working, writing, eating and sleeping for two weeks straight. Wait what's that I hear? Is that the worlds smallest violin? 28th April 2013 This is the day I completed the full manuscript. Sam may also notice that this was the day after the request for the full manuscript was sent. I then took a few evenings to give it a quick edit and sent the full manuscript off and took a well earned break playing on my Xbox for a month. Or maybe only a week before starting on "The Veilless Sky" I find it hard to survive a week without writing anything. 5th June 2013 This was the day I received the email from Sam and her suggestions for changes. We both agreed that a new chapter set in Florence would a nice addition. So I set to work again. 4th of July 2013 This is the day I sent the new manuscript off with the extra chapter in Florance, which I really enjoyed writing and a few other added/ altered scenes as I worried that some of the scene changes in the second half were a little sharp.