OH GOD THIS OUTLINE.

Understand that I don't outline very often. But on something that looks to be coming in at 13,000 words, it's kind of necessary in order to pull all the plot threads together and make sure all my ducks are, if not in a row, at least on the same page and foreshadowed properly.

It's not a formal outline with ABC 123 abc etc. More a loose connection of plot points joined by arrows. There's very little white space left on the page anymore. Maybe, once I post it for the Usual Suspects, I'll scan the thing and show it to you. It's much more of a mess than the outline for Won His Soul was, but then, my initial plot here, when I started, was a lot less put-together than that one was too.

I think I've at least figured out a good chunk of my magic system (such as it is), how my Infernal Steampunk Device helps Save the Day, and, possibly, how my protag Gets the Girl. And there might be a bear. Because I can.

Once I finish this, I may actually do what they say to do, which is put it away for a week and not look at it. I'll start something else, let this ferment for awhile, and then tackle the edit with fresh eyes. And this one looks to be my Writers of the Future entry, although I may ship it off to F&SF first, depending on when I actually call it DONE.

At least this one isn't emotionally exhausting me the way Won His Soul did. That one really took it out of me, y'all.

Speaking of editing, I was pointed at Ten Lies You Tell Yourself While Editing, which is funny because it's true, and there are also Ten More Lies as well. But I'm one of those weirdos who actually likes editing.

Okay. Back to Pounding Out Words.

What a productive day.

I scribbled over a thousand words today, bringing the count on the steampunk werewolf western up to not quite 11,300.

Yeah, there's no way I can wrap this in another 1700 words. Not happening. So I'm revising the estimated count upward to 15,000. *deadpan* Whee. But I know (sort of) how it ends, at least, and I hammered out a good deal of the rest of the plot in my head today.

So, on the morrow, I may challenge myself to scribble the number of words that the handsome and hard-working howardtayler thinks I should be scribbling in a day--which is 2,000. And he's not wrong. If I could stop getting distracted by shiny things and manage my time better, I could easily do that number of words on a day, and it would take me, as a practical matter, about two hours. It's just a matter of me sitting down and doing it, because Dad knows I actually do have the time, usually.

I'll make that a goal for the next two days and see how that shakes out. Because if I can do that, then it should have an END at the bottom by sometime Sunday. Wish me luck.