The past few days have been a struggle, and today was no different as Real Life reared its head in particularly ugly ways. However, I've been steadily closing in on the end of this book, and I knew that if I could get to the last chapter the usual end-of-book burst would probably kick in, so in between running here and there to deal with things I kept pounding out the pages and sure enough . . .
Ah, the big showdown at the end. When the air is filled with flying bullets and the sharp tang of powdersmoke and the words fairly leaping from my fingers to the keyboard to the screen! I live for those scenes. Finally, 34 pages from where I started this morning, all the bad guys were vanquished and our stalwart hero rode away in search of further adventures . . . adventures that he'll probably never have because I think there's a good chance this will be the last book in the series. But hey, things like that are outta my hands, Jack. I just spin the yarns.
So, the drop-dead date on this book is tomorrow, and while I still have to edit what I wrote today and Livia has to edit what I wrote today, I feel confident that the finished file will drop in my editor's in-box sometime during the day Monday. When I took on the extra books I felt like I could get the work done in time, but it wound up being closer than I'd hoped, and closer than I like. I started posting these updates as a prod for me to work harder, so I don't know if I'll continue them or not. The next drop-dead date is almost six weeks away, and that seems like a real luxury now. But I've enjoyed doing the updates and some of you have told me that you like reading them, so I'll probably keep them going for a while, anyway. And knowing me I'll probably get in a jam again and need the extra incentive.
Meanwhile, I was going to take tomorrow off, but it looks like that hobgoblin Real Life may prevent that, so there's a good chance I'll get up in the morning and start the next book. As I've said before, what else am I gonna do?
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5 comments:
Congrats on meeting the drop-dead date, James.
Though that sounds a little weird.
On those rare days I don't feel like writing I just tell myself that if it weren't for writing I'd likely be doing hard time.
Mean Pete
I'm in constant awe of your productivity, James. Would that I could write so quickly.
I wish I was as prolific as you are...this book I'm working on would have been done weeks ago.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that everybody writes at their own pace, and after you've been at it for a while you find that pace. You can push beyond that pace for a while, but not indefinitely. I've written five books in the past four months, a couple of them close to 100K words apiece, and that's really more than I'm comfortable doing now. My hope is that the rest of the year I can slow down a little and still keep up with what I need to get done.
By the way, I just e-mailed the file of this one to the editor, so it'll be there when he gets to the office in the morning.
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