The Last Leg

I’m in the last bits of the A Trace of Moonlight draft. 85k written – about another 15k to go. Though really, 100k is just the ballpark figure. A little more, a little less – it doesn’t really matter. I’ll be fleshing things out quite a bit as I restructure part of the plot, so I don’t worry about final counts until I’ve got something I’m actually happy with.

I think the final word count for A Brush of Darkness was 102k when it went to print…A Sliver of Shadow exploded to about 117k at one point, but I narrowed it down to 110k at the end. (And I’d say the standard UF/PNR usually runs 90k to 120k for trad publishing. Epic fantasy can be longer, but it’s also harder to break into if a publisher doesn’t want to spend the extra print money.)

When it comes down to it, though – 15k is NOTHING. I have writer friends who can pump out 10k in a day. (Admittedly, they’re full time writers, so I have to give myself a pass there.) But if I make a good sized push I should be able to get this thing done by next week.

And yet, my standard MO around this time frame is to slow down. Like I know the end is near and I find myself not wanting to finish it. Odd, because I know how this one ends. I haven’t written the ending, but it’s in my head. I know what the last line will be and how the last chapter rolls up…and that will be fun and soft and bittersweet. (And will probably leave a bit of an opening for another book, should the publisher be so inclined. *plug plug*)

But right now? It’s the big confrontation between Abby and her enemy. It needs to be an epic scene. We need to see the over-arching motivation as to why things went down they way they have over the last few books.  And…

…I got nothing.

Okay, not entirely true, but sometimes I have to question my own motivations.Am I dragging my feet because I don’t really want to finish it? Afraid I can’t do the scene justice? Or is it that once I’m done here, my contract is up and OMFG, what if I never sell another book?

I have no idea.

It’s not a block. It’s more like the protection of procrastination. (If I don’t finish it, I don’t have to expose the crap to the harsh light of day and admit that I still have so far to go, perhaps. Odd, because there’s a part of me that just wants to get it done and make it look pretty.)

So, I think I’m just going to have to sit down push through it. Type the words, make note of the bodies…and let the revisions sort it all out.