Progress Post: Reincarnation

I was doing so well in February. I'd written over 50,000 words, and I could see the end of the book in sight. I knew where I wanted to end it, what needed to happen in the meantime, and what the characters would do about it.

But, somehow, finishing became less of a priority in March. I have a bunch of excuses. Hunger Games came out this month, and I had to go see a midnight premiere with my friends. A friend from Kentucky came to visit, and it would've been rude to sit here typing while she occupied my living room. (Which didn't keep me from surfing the internet while she occupied my living room, by the way.) I picked up a hellish chest cold that had me spending a lot more time sleeping than usual. There weren't any write-ins (because I get so much done during write-ins, lemme tell ya). My husband picked up Disgaea 4, the latest in a video game series to which I am horribly addicted.

Those are all excuses. There is no real reason why a document that was about 90,000 words long at the end of February is only 115,245 words long now. That's a terrible output. Sure, it's better than nothing, but I can do better. What happened to writing every night and keeping up the momentum, anyway?

I know what happened to it, actually. What happened is that I wimped out on my own edict, and suddenly couldn't face putting my main character through what she was about to experience. Book 2's antagonist has a lot of hype to live up to in the book and a half I spend introducing him, and he's even worse than my protagonist expected. While I can't wait for her to emerge, victorious, first I have to get her through the impetus to take a suicidal risk. It's harder than I expected.

I'll get through it, and hopefully we won't be far into April before I tweet that I'm done with this monster. I'm cringing thinking about how much I'm going to have to edit it back down, but, one thing at a time.