Roadmap, or plan for the book

Asked if I have a coherent plan I was happy to be able to answer in the positive.

As may be apparent I have a past in IT.

Finish pre-alpha this year
Finish alpha this year
Manuscript in drawer
Outline, minor world building and fleshing out a few new characters for next book
Start editing and rewriting this book in February 2007
Finish beta late Mars
Send to beta readers and of course return that favor
Work on query letter while the beta is being processed
Finish RC1 during May
Start pitching to agents during May
Start first draft of next book during May

So, this may need some translation into standard English.
I did all kinds of mistakes when I wrote Taleweaver, my previous and only finished novel. It turned out a mess, but one has to start somewhere. Of the mistakes I think editing on the fly was one of the worst.
Now, all authors aren't wired the same way, so whenever I make a blatant statement like "mistake" or "good" it should be applied to me only.
Editing on the fly meant I started obsessing over what I had already written rather than finishing the story.
In the end I had a beginning I had revised four or five times while the later parts of the book was very much if a first draft state.
I also drowned in minor details and forgot to check if I had written the right story to begin with. As it turned out I hadn't, but that's another story.

This time I more or less refuse to do any edits at all until I have finished my first draft. Ok, I happen to see the wrong word used while doing a search to check continuity then I fix it. That takes a few seconds.
I did run into a run of scenes that disabled continuity and as I use a very terse outline I had to rewrite those or risk creating invisible continuity errors all the way through the manuscript. That did cost me two full days work.
Apart from that? Nothing. I still have scenes I know will have to go, but they stay until I finish.

That kind of first draft I label pre-alpha. I set out to have that one finished before year's end when I started on this project.

Now I happen to be slightly ahead of schedule, and that takes us to the alpha.
A few scenes will have to go. They don't belong to this story and need replacing in order to create a coherent story. There are other scenes that are currently either wrong, as in factually wrong, or simply unreadable. I'll sanitize those.
When a man who starts traveling on horseback no longer arrives in a car where none are to be found along the road I have my alpha version. It will still look very much like a first draft.

Then?
Sleep. Well, not literally, but the manuscript needs to go into a virtual drawer to mature for a while. I have to get that distance to what I've written before I can dig into it and do a more thorough rewrite.
That, however, is no excuse to stay away from writing. Thus the outlining of the next book. It'll be terse. Kind of a point by point synopsis with key characters, locations and events. It will also sketch a brief disposition of the story.
An outline isn't a holy book for me. I'll probably end up deviating from it in the end, but I want to know when, where and why I deviated.

Given a months time in the drawer the manuscript should be ready for a read with new eyes. Then comes the ripping to shreds part. With some luck the approximately 100k words long alpha will become a 120k words long beta. That should require a minimum of 40k words written. If I'm lucky I'll only need to rip out a full 20% of what I've written this far.
That beta should be a story I wrongly consider ready for publishing.
Enter beta readers. They should find the mistakes that I haven't. This is also by far the scariest part of the process. Have I made an ass of myself? The entire book could be tripe.

Provided the input I receive is in general positive with comments on a number of glaring flaws included I'll set out to fix those and finish the book.
That is the RC1, or Release Candidate 1. It's the version I'll start pitching to agents.

The beta reader process will take some time though, and considering that you'll get a few seconds of attention for each query letter I'd better try to make mine good.
In a book you get second chances. I don't care if people say otherwise. A reader who has already settled down to read will allow for a few downers. Not many maybe, but it's not a matter of each page being perfect or the book heads for the trash bin.
In a query letter you don't get a second chance. I don't believe in agents picking up one again because it might be better the second time it's read.
So, working on a query letter.

The moment I start sending those out it's also time to start writing the next book. With the goal to have a pre-alpha finished before year's end.

Does is sound like a never ending story?