Hit 50K on The Darkness You Fear

So I'm heading for the homestretch.

I figure about 10 chapters left to go. I have the next three chapters pretty much figured out, and then I go into the last act, of which I have only vague notions.

It's a complicated book, not formulaic at all in structure. I like it. I feel like I have a knack of writing in the modern idiom with just enough of the old-time feel to it to seem authentic.

I'm not sure why, but I really love writing in the Western motif too. So Weird Western is like a perfect genre for me. I want to write a Virginia Reed adventure at least once a year from now on. She was born in 1831, so I figure I can take her all the way to the 1920's, heh.

More and more I'm thinking I need to do what I want to do, and hope that others like it.

The proposal for "Not by Water, But by Fire" was pretty much my attempt to be "mainstream" and it's okay, but if the publisher turns it down, (which I expect because I demanded a contract...balls), I'm going my own way on it. Which will be slightly more SF, maybe with a hint of the supernatural. Because that's the kind of book I like to write.

I have so many books to complete. I think I'm going to dedicate 2016 to finishing off all the projects I've started. If a really strong book comes to me, I'll break off and write that, but mostly, I'd just like the clear the decks. Start putting them out myself.

Went out to the Badlands again yesterday, did my 5 mile circuit. I have a "writing stump" that is situated about halfway through the route, and all the ideas I get in the first half of the walk I sit down and write, then go to the end, come back sit on the Writing Stump again.

I can't use the Writing Stump in the summer because it's infested with ants, but that's okay because it's warm enough to plop down on the sands and write there.

Planning on heading out there again today. I try not to let threatening skies stop me -- Central Oregon can have threatening skies a lot of the time, and never deliver. Wind seems to be the biggest thing, right now, and that's pretty harmless when it's warm. Even when the weather is bad, I can write in the car.

As soon as I turn onto the road to the Badlands, my mind starts churning. Cool.