end on the horizon

Got back into the word progress today hitting 3,000 words again which is great, probably half of chapter 27. The more important thing is I think I've finally got the ending all fitted together including all the elements I wanted. Looks like finishing the draft by the end of October is fairly unlikely now but so long as I can keep on track with by current plan it shouldn't be by much.

For now though I have more important tasks at hand, such was watching Due South dvds.

round blocks and round holes isn't always enough

So I've not written anything today yet and I'm not likely to. I'm currently trying to piece together the closing two chapters. I've got a number of events and scene ideas but making it all fit together in a way that works and has everything developing at the right pace is rather difficult. I won't be able to look at it this evening so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes tomorrow and the weekend to get it all together.

I currently find myself staring at my list of thoughts and waiting for the ah-ha moment where I see how to fit it all together... still waiting...

160,000 wordcount reached

Today I reached my goal of 160,000 words for Sibling. I'm still only half-way through chapter 26 with two more to go after that, so I'm a happy bunny.

As a user of compiz fusion I couldn't think of a better way to highlight this occasion other than to surround it in fire :)

Mammoth chapter

Ho-hum it's been another very slow day for writing. Sure the daily word count is just shy of 3,000, normally a very good figure, but I actually wrote about half of that yesterday evening. Maybe this is telling me I probably shouldn't work at the weekends and still expect full productivity within the week.

The other thing about these 3,000 words is most of them were on finishing chapter 25, which now weighs in at just under 9,000 words, longer than any other by a significant margin. This may get broken down in edits or I may actually end up re-organizing so that more chapters sit at around that length, it will depend I guess on how well it reads. Chapter 26 however looks likely to be a much shorter one so hopefully I can get it sewn up by Wednesday, but then I've said that before...

The Death Report

139,020 People

A brief triumph over some of the voices

Huzzah, I've just finished a scene I've been struggling with basically since Thursday. It had been the last scene of chapter 23 but got pushed into the first scene of chapter 24. It is a rather tense exchange between several significant characters and it's taken me this long to piece together exactly how each of them views it and how they feel throughout it.

The good news is I can now get on with the rest of chapter 24. The bad news is that there is at least one scene of this kind in each of the remaining chapters as the story really starts to close on its conclusion.

Finale on a postage stamp...

Another day down, another 3000 words, and I've still not completed chapter 23. It's turning out to be somewhat more massive that I'd first thought. This it definitely good as some of the last few chapters are I think going to be much shorter than the average length I'm hoping for. Maybe they'll turn out to be longer than they seem too, or perhaps I'll be able to write the big final chapter on a postage stamp. I guess I'll find out when I get there.

Funky Gibbon

Well I've worked out how the new ending fits together. I've mapped it out in a way that so far seemed consistent and without any problems. Though I'm sure there are still a few to be discovered along the lines.

Also I upgraded my PC to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon today, all is going pretty well and the integration of compiz fusion if rather nice. And for a fantastic example of bad lip-syncing see The Goodies - Funky Gibbon

It turns out there is such as thing as too many ideas

Last night I decided, 'you know what, this book needs a different ending' when in this case ending refers to the last 8 chapters...

So I've spent today reorganizing everything to fit ny initial thoughts, which has gone okay. But now I'm stuck on something which is quite important, so I've not written an actual word today other than lots of notes. I have however eaten a lot of sweet chilli pistachios, yum.

Hopefully I'll be able to sort out this out in conversation with Kirsty this evening, talking about these things always seems to help my thinking process.