1270 words! And chapter 43 is finally complete!

Lainey is fighting with a crappy mood, unable to see daylight at the end of the tunnel. However, a potential future for her is in the works, and she’s beginning to realize that she might not have to leave Scotch behind when this assignment is over. A lot of it will rest on Scotch’s response, but at least Lainey now has a possible work around.

More confident that I’m still with Lainey despite the interruption of flu, lethargy and doubts. The story’s not dragging along nearly as much as I thought it was, which is another fear. When it takes months to write a few weeks of story time, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Work every day this week, but it won’t get busy until Wednesday. After that, exhaustion will no doubt set in. Ah, the joy of jobs!

But not by full on writing.

I’ve lost Lainey’s voice. Or at least, I think I’ve lost it. I’m not the most objective toward the end of a novel. I’m literally sick of the MC and wondering if the reader will be, too. The doubts and second guessing build up. Yeah, okay, she was a certain way at the beginning of the novel, but that was months ago! The end is dragging as bad as the middles did, and I can’t for the life of me remember if I’ve stayed on track or not. According to the plot outline, I’m where I need to be, but that doesn’t mean Lainey’s where she needs to be on a development level.

My biggest weakness is the ending. I’m so fed up with living, breathing, dreaming the book, that the closer to The End I get, the more likely I’ll whip through it and leave the reader hanging in an anticlimatic cloud. It’s kind of a cheat for the reader – after investing all the time to read the thing, I ended it THERE??

I’ve spent the morning and afternoon reading through the entire book. I’m two thirds of the way through, but my concentration is shot. I’ll try to finish it tomorrow. Up until the Farewell Burn, the book held my interest (which must be saying something since I wrode the damned thing.) Did some tweaking, noted areas where I needed to make some changes, but didn’t focus on them. That wasn’t my intent for this reading; I can’t get distracted by full on edits when I haven’t finished yet.

Maybe the refresher will make it easier to get back into the swing of the chapters. I had hoped to finish by the Ides of March, but if I can’t get past staring at the screen in the morning before work, there’s going to be a problem.

sigh

But I hafta . . .

pout

stares at half a chapter on the screen