Hit 52K words today on "Spell Realm" with only a chapter and an epilogue to go. My goal was somewhere between 55K and 60K since this is intended to be a YA novel, so I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

It's been a struggle. The words aren't exactly flowing, but you know what? When I'm done, it's very hard to see a qualitative difference between words that are inspired and words that are worked at. So I just keep working at it.

I want to finish it by next Saturday.

The mystery: Last night going to bed, I told myself I wanted to fully visualize the last chapter. Just a small prompt for tomorrow, but by the time I went to sleep, I had it figured out. Where those thoughts come from is a mystery. I suspect part of it is asking the right question, but I do that all the time and images and words don't magically appear. And then...sometimes they do.




I'm going to go through "Takeover" one more time for a couple of weeks. I just bought a book about the Sagebrush Rebellion which I'm hoping to use for research. Then should have that done in time for my editor Lara to take a look at the end of the month.

I want to finish "Ruby Red and the Robots" after that. Also turn it into a Spell Realm novel.

Then finish "The Wyvern Riders." Then get the geographical details of all four novellas of "Tales of the Thirteen Principalities" right.

Then look over the first two Lander books, and adapt the third book to the new changes, and the fourth book, which also needs a finish.

Lots of work, no so much fun. But I don't feel ready to start a new novel until I've mulled it over a little longer, so doing this catch-up writing is all good.