Stretching the bounds of credulity.

Well, I'm definitely stretching the bounds of credulity in Tuskers III.  Smart pigs. Talking pigs. Gun wielding pigs.  Zombies.  But if you just go along for the ride, it should be fun.  But I don't want it be a cartoon.  I want it to be believable.

All right.  So I'm struggling.  I'm half tempted to walk away and come back later.  But I've already done that with Ghostlander.  I've already got several manuscripts that need to be revised.  I really don't want to leave another book undone.  If this was the first book in a series I'd probably walk away, but it's the third and climatic book and it needs to be finished to validate the first two books.

I'm trying to stay with the characters, staying in their heads, trying to imagine what they're doing and thinking.  That seems to be mostly working.  But I have some doubts about the plot: wondering if it is too complicated and too many characters.

I'm pushing on through to the end, then I'm going to set it aside for a week or two, then come back and do a rewrite.  Give it to Lara, see what she has to say, but with the understanding that it may require a second round.  (I believe parts I and II only needed the one major editorial go around.)

I'm spending whole days eking out a few hundred words that I'm not totally happy with.  But I kept taking days off to see if inspiration struck, and that only seemed to make me rusty.  So I'm back to sitting down and instituting the Five Minute Rule and getting those few hundred words done.

What it means is -- I'm going to have to work for it.  There is going to be a lot of just going back and revising and clarifying.  This in itself isn't a bad thing -- sometimes the writing ends up being better.

But I really like the books that come to me more or less complete -- which seems to happen about half the time. But I can't make that happen.  It just does or it doesn't. The books I struggle with end up being just as good, just harder work.

Just knuckling down.