Am I allowed to use emotional tags in my blog? If so, then the tag today would be: *le sigh*
There are days when I wonder just how foolish I was to challenge myself to this. The challenge to write a novel in two months, start to finish with nothing more than an opening idea, might have been a bit of a stretch. I’m pretty sure there won’t be a line of people waiting to point fingers or fault me if I don’t make it. But I’m not about to find out if I can possibly help it. Trust me, I’ve always been much harder on myself than anyone else would be.
But please allow me a minute of self-pity here. As I’ve been working on this book, I’ve also been completing rewrites and edits on The Civilian – Blood Link III, putting out Stuck in Korea Time, and leading a fairly busy personal life. I’ve been distracted.
Also – what the hell was I thinking by choosing to write about this particular subject? The research has been… difficult. I’ve been asking questions that sometimes can’t be answered and the learning curve has been steep as well as painful at times. 99% of the things I need to know in order to write convincingly will never appear in the book. That seems unfair to the people who have so willingly shared their information.
Okay – enough whining. Moving on.
Where am I at in The Embassy Guards? I’m still not sold on this title by the way – my beta readers should plan on providing input and options. 33,000 words into the project and I’m numerically on track to finish on schedule. Sadly, while I know what happens next, I still have no idea how this one ends. Once again: *le sigh*
With the help of some wonderful friends, I feel like I finally have a handle on the bomb. I’ve already mentioned several times that things go boom, so saying it’s a bomb isn’t giving anything away. Knowing what the bomb is made of, and how the bomb behaves, has given me the confidence to move on with certain other elements of the book.
Now I have to get on with the nitty-gritty middle of the book and hope that the story resolves itself in my head. A surprise ending for the reader might be acceptable, but it’s damn hard on the author.
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