I'm almost at sixty thousand words. That seems like quite a lot. I set seventy as the goal, and I'm not sure if I'll make it for the first draft, but that doesn't really matter cos it's about which words I use, not how many of them. Three chapters to go. One more character to introduce. And I feel like I've run out of steam. I'm this close, but it's like I don't want to finish it. I do want to finish it, and I'm bloody well going to manage to finish before the end of the year, but again the procrastinator in me is sending me a memo telling me that at some point or other he'll rear his head and make me put off writing until the last minute. Am I going to wait until the last week of the year and then scramble to do it? I bloody well hope not, I'd like to prove to myself that I can write outside of the goals and guidelines I set for myself. I thought I'd broken my habit of doing the bare minimum back in September when I made it to almost 25k words, well over the goal I'd set myself. I couldn't tell you the last time I overachieved like that-- all through school I was a b student. Bishops? Mostly B's. Louisiana? Mostly B's. AP classes? B's. College? Yep. It's never mattered how hard or easy everything's been, I've always been a solid B. If I went back and did school all over again, repeated classes, I'd still get B's.

So back in September, it was nice to think that maybe I've gotten over that minimum effort thing that I always do. And now I find myself half-way through November, still not done with the book, and so close I can almost taste it, but what do I do? Instead of buckling down and finishing it off, I start on chapter one of the next book. It's just more interesting right now. I know where the story is going to finish off Book one- hell, I already wrote the last chapter- so of course I want to move on and do something else.

Need to focus. It's like making model aeroplanes when I was younger. Always loved making them, don't think I ever finished a single bloody one. I was into model ships for a while, and I've still got half the cutty sark sitting in my garage. Half-painted canvas. Short stories that need finishing and editing. Never even sealed the tiles I laid around the fireplace and the front door. Maybe this book's going to be the first thing I really finish?

Not that blogging is going to help me finish it. And I'm not going to use Snow White as an excuse- even though it's taking up a tonne of time, and being sick into the bargain isn't helping. I'm going to see what I can do, maybe finish it this week while Mum and Dad are here. That would be good. Let's see if I can pull my thumb out me arse and do it. . .