I wrote 8,100 words today, bringing the novel total to 67,400. New chapter title is "A Knight of Mold and Shadows." Today's scenes featured men with shadows for faces riding giant blackbirds, a ship-to-ship battle where the ships are actually flying castles, a vial of gorgon blood, an assassin falling into the bay, a botched abduction attempt, deadly fortune cookies, my protagonist bursting into flame, and delicious pizza. This book is rocking right along. I might be able to finish it this weekend (I'm guessing it's maybe 15,000 or 20,000 words from being done), but if not, I can finish it next week. I know everything that happens from here, and there's still a lot of action and twists coming. Whee!

I expect to write 40,000 words or so in five days (I've done over 24,000 in three days, so if I go on this way through the weekend, as I plan to...). Which is about half the novel. Now, see, I couldn't have written the first half in five days -- it took months, and rightly so. I had to figure a lot of things out, and a lot of that came from actually writing, and thinking, and writing some more, a little at a time. But after the halfway point, I had all the dominoes set up, and it was just a question of knocking them over and watching them fall. Since I know what happens on almost a scene-by-scene level (at the very least on a major-event-by-major-event level), I'm limited at this point only by my writing speed, how sore my muscles get from sitting at my desk, and my native desire to goof off a bit on vacation. I've been making myself write for about four hours a day, and it's working just fine, and isn't all that strenuous. I find it exhilarating, and the sense of momentum is awesome.

The ending of the book will probably be rushed, and I'll have to write some backfill scenes to set things up, and etc., but it's easier for me to fix a whole book that's a little bit broken than it is for me to make every page perfect before moving on.

Otherwise, today's been nice. I chatted with mom on the phone, and hung out on the back porch in the surprisingly lovely weather. I ate pie for breakfast and a turkey sandwich for lunch. I had to run up to work for about 15 minutes (I spent more time driving to and from than I spent at the office) to take care of an unexpected problem from the issue we just finished. Now Heather's off getting her nails done, and probably picking up her sister from the airport after that, so I'm off to lounge on the couch and watch cartoons or something. Hope y'all are having a good Friday.