So, in an effort to remain transparent about my writing process, this is where I’m at today, as opposed to three days ago:

Yup.

Three days ago, I talked about how every single word that I’d written for this novel so far had been like pulling teeth, and then I decided to write a little over 10k and plot out the last six chapters of part three.  So that’s a thing that happened that I am completely baffled by.  Like, why can’t writing just make sense?  Sometimes?  Maybe just once?  Because then it would be easy, and that would be no fun.  Ha.

This novel is going to actually be the death of me, what the heck, but like, not in a bad way?  I’m really enjoying it, but at the same time, a part of me wants to light it on fire?  I honestly have no idea what’s going on anymore, but the words are happening, and the story makes sense, so I guess that’s a good thing.  Have you ever kind of blacked out a tiny bit while writing?  Not even blacked out, but just–spaced out for an hour, and when you came back, there were a bunch of words on your screen that you didn’t remember writing, but that actually made sense?

Anyway.  The end of Saints 2 is in sight!  I’ve got six chapters left of part three, I think, and if I want to reach my goal of 40k, each one has to be at least 5k.  This will actually not be a problem at all considering there’s a Landon and Ezra chapter that’s going to be pretty much the entirety of the final battle, so they’ll both be much longer than 5k.  This is particularly awesome considering there’s a super secret chapter at the end of part three that I don’t see being anywhere near 5k (who knows, it might be, anything could happen), and that’s literally all I’m going to say about it, ha!

Guys, I’m planting so many seeds for Saints at sea in this novel, it’s great.

I also hit 100k!  I was pretty close in my last blog, but it’s always nice to finally reach that mark, and now I’m just flying straight into the sun with these last chapters.  I honestly feel like the last six of three are going to happen pretty fast, and that four is going to be just a breeze, and then I’m just going to be standing around like what do I do now?  I don’t even know what I’m doing now, let’s be real.  I am actually listening to the How to Train Your Dragon soundtrack, that wasn’t just me being dramatic.

You know what I hate?  Big battles.  They’re, like, the scene in the story, you know.  Everything has been leading up to it, and it’s this great, big event, but most of the time, it’s done and over in a couple chapters.  I wish there was a way to stretch them out, to make them feel like they had enough space to exist after all that build-up, but the truth is that battles never take as long as the journey because they’re the end of the journey, so it really is okay for them to only be a couple chapters long, but I just feel like I’m jipping my reader a little.  Hey, here’s this crazy ass novel that’s hella long, but the climax of the story only takes, like, 5%, of the total words.

I think I need to go back and see how many chapters the Battle of Hogwarts was, just to remind myself that it took seven books for this one battle.  (I know there were climaxes in each book, calm down.)

Alright, enough procrastinating, and back to the words.  I’m going to finish this goddamn novel before the end of April, guys.