Getting back on the train has paid big dividends for me for writing this week, as has having a reliable computer to work on. I’ve gotten used to the keyboard on the new laptop, and when the words are coming, the computer is completely unobtrusive, which is exactly how it should be.

Word count since last Sunday, by day

Sunday: 2142

Monday: 1253

Tuesday: 1398

Wednesday: 1506

Thursday: 2315

Friday: 1228

Saturday: 984

Today (thus far): 1354

Total words in MSS: 49931

Not a bad week in terms of word count. Fifty thousand is a milestone number, and definitely signals that it’s time to start the run up to the big finale. Which is good, because I’m just about done one of the big conflicts in Act II.

The hardest part about this book is that it’s a lot less about action scenes, and more about conflicts driven by dialog. I’m not used to writing this way, and it’s a complete 180 from The Forgotten Road, where I had a boy alone in the woods, and dialogue only entered the picture through flashbacks.  I don’t know how this is going to go over with my readers, and I constantly worry about it. But then again, the area I’ve been told I need to work the most on is my characters, so that they come up to the same level as the world I build for them. The world in this book is small.  The characters are everything.

Right now, I’m not sure where the final word count will be.  Could be anywhere between 65000 and 85000, which means I’m still somewhere between two weeks and a month from being done. The story is there, in my head, it’s just a matter of getting from one plot point to the next smoothly, and that, in this book, is a lot of hard work.