Little Mini-Update...

Thus far, this year, I have written a hair over an eighth of a million words - therefore, I am well on my way to the target. That comprises ‘Ghost Ship’ released at the end of last month, and the bulk of ‘Take and Hold’, which is now about twenty thousand words from completion. However...for the last four days, I have only managed the rather poor count of 1,268 words. A succession of hectic days took a rather severe toll on my time, and I woke up yesterday with what I am pretty sure is the flu...actually, I rather suspect I’ve had it for a while, but getting up with no time-sensitive things to do gave my body a chance to realize that.

Being only twenty thousand words from the finishing line - eight chapters, seven of which are action-intensive - the plan is to try for four five-thousand word chapters to get the book finished. I’m always the same when I get this close to the ending; my natural tendency is to put my head down and storm for the finish line, and my average word count usually races up. After setting everything up, I’m as anxious as anyone to see how it all works out - I never know all the details until I actually sit down to write, one of the benefits of discovery writing.

Once this is finally finished - and for once, I should have the draft completed more than a month ahead of schedule, which is the plan henceforth to give me more lead time - I can start work on my next project. I’d originally planned to do this in April and May, but for various reasons, it looks like I’ll be doing it in March and half of April instead, both because I want to give Alamo 12 time to brew in my brain before I commit it to paper, but also because, frankly, I’m anxious to get started. I won’t give you any details now, but I will show you what my recreational reading for those final four days is, and you can perhaps make any guesses based on that...