I caught up on queries today, then read three partials and asked after a full that hadn't arrived in my inbox when I'd requested it a few weeks ago. Turns out, the writer sent it, but something in the internets between us ate it. If you've sent materials and haven't received a response after a month, do email to confirm it arrived. There are a couple partials I can think of right off that never came; until now, I'd assumed the writers changed their minds, but it could be the internets eating things!

There are still a few partials (and a couple fulls) in my inbox, but if you have something with me, feel free to email and confirm its arrival. From now on, I'm going to try to remember to email back right away to let people know.

--

For the first time since returning home, I fired up Scrivener and opened MUNDANE MAGIC. I'm still pretty excited about it. I got a few inspiring crits for it on the OWW while I was away; seeing what people like, I can do more of that! I can also play on the assumptions people made about Laine's situation, lead them in the wrong direction while giving them all the answers for the right direction...

Oh man, guys, I'm having so much fun with this. I loved DELUGE and UNWATER and all those, but they were hard stories to write. Physically and emotionally exhausting. I fully intend on finishing the series regardless of whether anyone ever buys them -- at this point I feel like I need to finish the series -- but MUNDANE MAGIC is working great for recharging and relaxing. I've spent the last year in a damp and dark world where hope is a myth. It's nice to get back to something that's just fun and where I know there's not going to be anything unbearably horrible. Things in this story are going to turn out okay.

--

My flute came back while I was away. It needed a full repad -- the old ones were leaking like crazy -- and lots of the screws and springs were probably in bad shape. I took it in at the end of April and it took nearly a month to get it back, but I opened it earlier and if I didn't recognize the scratches and shallow dents I'd've had to pay extra for them to fix, I wouldn't have recognized it as my flute. The repair guy must have been horrified at its condition, because it's soooo shiny and polished now, it's unbelievable. I took pictures. *g*

It plays nicely, too.

(It should. It cost almost as much to fix the poor thing as it did to buy it fifteen years ago. (Good golly!!) But it's worth it, because I've missed playing.)

The first UNWATER crit is in. (She read it twice. Overachiever? Maybe. But her speed is good for my ego. *g*) She picked out multiplying typos, including a missing "i" from "doing," and a "doorfame." Oh, there were many more, but those are the favorites.

So far it looks like I did what I set out to do, with a few things that could be strengthened and motivations made clearer. I'll see what other people say before making any changes. (Well, the typos -- I have fixed them. Evil little things.) I'm still too close to it to be objective about many things. Ah, book.

--

SCATTER THE ASHES has yet to give me a new first line or a new scene. (I'm pretty sure it's the first line's fault with the tone and all. Staring at it a bit more will help. Maybe I'll grab something pointy, too. --And suddenly I'm realizing that the thing I've been saying about wooden knitting needles and vampires can probably apply here. I wonder if Tessa likes socks as much as I do.)

I asked TSUNAMI again whether it had a first scene, but it shuffled its feet and excused itself, so I'll take that as a no.

I will continue to glare at both of them until someone decides to stop being so coy.

--

I had to change the ferrets' bedding today (because it seriously needed to be washed), and threw down their clean sheets while I arranged other things. They took this as an invitation to roll around and be cute. Camera time!



Oh hello, Simon's tummy.

And this one's a bit blurry because they move faster than my camera can shutter, but Stewie reaching up at Simon just kills me!



There are more pictures on Flickr, but those are my favorites. (You can click either photo to go to Flickr. Internet magic!)

Now that I've finally finished UNWATER and sent it to readers.

Now that I've made notes on TSUNAMI and the other two (mostly TSUNAMI since I know more about it) so I don't have to worry about forgetting anything.

Now that I've reached a point I can work on something new in order to lure an agent and editor into realizing my brilliance and throwing large sums of money at me.

Guess what I want to do.

I desperately, desperately want to work on TSUNAMI. And heck, write right to the end. Of FLOODGATE. (MAELSTROM between.)

So I think it's pretty obvious at this point that a) I like pain, and b) aforementioned agents and editors need to realize brilliance in DELUGE and get on with the throwing of large sums of money so I can get all of this out of my head. And properly. Not this "notes" thing that inevitably serves to make me want to jump right back in. Because notes doesn't work on me.

Or maybe it does. Hang on, checking forehead for "gullible."

--

Well, I've done some brainstorming with hollailama about no-title-vampires, and I think I even have a name for the MHG after shaking behindthename.com for an hour. No concrete plot yet, but that will show up after some banging on the keyboard and death threats.

I'll let the books pull each others' hair for a while.

Man, I'm such a sucker.

*sigh*

I finished the draft of UNWATER this evening and sent it to readers. Overall, I'm pleased with it.

It's a draft, and it probably has problems, but I've fixed what I know about, and that's pretty much all anyone can do when they're still close to the story. I was afraid the focus wouldn't hold up, but I think it does. It didn't quite seem like it would work out when I was writing the first draft because it took so long (for me), and some scenes felt like they took forever to write. Hence worrying about focus. But reading through it again, at a faster rate than it took to write, I feel like the focus is where I was hoping it would be.

Several scenes still break my heart.

The choices Angela make are still scary and difficult. I'm glad I'm not her.

I don't blame any of my readers if they hate me after this. :)

--

I have some work materials to read tonight and tomorrow, and then...vampires.

*pokes vampires for a title*

(Nothing with blood, moon, night, teeth, and whatever else vampire story titles typically have. *subversive*)

Dear LiveJournal,

Today I discovered horrible typos in DELUGE. There were several instances of "nightwaith" rather than "nightwraith" in the first scene. (And only in the first scene.) I fixed them.

Then I ate pizza and watched Angel with Jeff. I also knit more of the sock that won't die. And then I released the ferrets and worked on UNWATER, where I discovered I had made no typos involving "nightwaiths" (I used the search feature), but in one scene it was cloudy and damp at the beginning, and sunny by the end. In a world where it's usually cloudy and damp. I fixed that, too.

Now I have two chapters left to go, which I think I can do tomorrow -- barring catastrophe. And that means my mom can stop yelling at me to get the draft in her email box so she can find out what happens. We all win!

Now I have responded to all my email, read the internets, and made a silly blog post. I have brainmush.

Flowers and kittens,
Jodi

Dear Brain,

The reason you were confused about where the flashlight was in this scene is because there is no flashlight in this scene. She put it down in the last scene and never picked it up again. Remember?

Remember?

Yeah. Now just remember to take the flashlight out of the end of this scene where you added it before, thinking it should be there. No. Flashlight. (And the next scene, too, I think. Which, yes, means Angela has to run home in the dark.)

Clever as ever,
Jodi

Halfway through. Now we've come to the writing I haven't gone over already, so there are likely to be lots of things wrong from here on. Or not. I guess we'll see.

I had time for more tonight, but chapter ten has a nice set of notes sitting next to it: Continuity with the nightwraith; ground setting by the lake; make sure of where the flashlight is.

Fun things.

So I'll save that for tomorrow when I know I can do it...hopefully right.

I think I will pass the rest of my evening with yarn and tea. Then Jeff will come home and there will be dinner...of some sort...I think. Tomorrow we must get up and go to the store (as we didn't today), because otherwise we'll starve.

2/3s to go.

(Actually, that's not quite accurate. Apparently my front chapters are heavier than my back chapters: Scriv says I've gone through 33k of 93k. But we'll go by the chapters because even simple math makes my brain hurt. Besides, my stories tend to grow in the revision, so there will very likely be more words added to the other 2/3s.)

I finished chapter six today. I hadn't yet inserted the information I needed to give Angela, and I didn't particularly want to add it at the end of six because I liked where it ended, but after scanning the events of the next few chapters, I realize this is probably the only place to add it. And in spite of my grumblings, it does work with a nice themey thing there.

Had to pause for research, of course, because while I'd figured out basically what Angela needed to know, I forgot how it happened, and then exactly what was being used -- I had to decide that still. Science also makes my brain hurt.

But I'm glad that's out of the way. (And wondering if this book even deserves to be called fantasy anymore. Dark alt-world urban fantasy doesn't really cover it anymore, either. Dark alt-world urban science fantasy. There we go. *g*)

Now, things get worse.

Well, I finished all my crit-shaped things this afternoon, read slush, and dithered on the partials sitting in my inbox. If I was a good person, I'd have read them today.

Instead I pulled out UNWATER. I'd already sneaked in the first scene of chapter one, so I started in the second scene and went to the end of chapter three this evening. I've already been through the beginning a couple times while writing the first draft, so other than clarifying sentences, fixing line of direction problems, and adding some information, I didn't have to do much. Just glared at it until I decided yep, that's okay, and move on to the next bit.

The next few chapters should go the same, though at some point I need to insert a necessary piece of information. I'd been saving it for a special big reveal moment in the first draft, but ... that moment never came. And then I realized things would be much more sinister looking if I added it earlier. So, soonish, Angela will learn some skeeeeevy things the Ministry has been doing. Skeevier than the things she already knows about.

I wish I had the brain to do it now. I have time for at least another scene, but not the brain. (Stupid brain.)

The part that made my heart flutter when first writing it? Still does even after my brain has been thoroughly scrubbed with weeks and other stories. I'm going to take that as a good sign and continue onward. (Tomorrow. Brain. Nom.)

--

Remember the vampire story? Apparently I'll have an antag POV. She arrived yesterday, and I told her to have some tea and settle in while I revise UNWATER. Vampires are next.

Vampires need to provide a title, too, so I can have a tag for them.

( Clicky for antag. )

I finished critting the last full manuscript. That's three.

Now I think I will fall over into a pile of yarn and ferrets. (Well, the ferrets would be safely away from thumping body parts.) I have one more small crit to do -- an OWWer sent me five chapters off-shop because I don't want to forget him, and I totally will if they're just hanging out on the shop -- but that shouldn't take too long. I can do that tomorrow. And then I can -- *gasp!* -- revise UNWATER.

I'm looking forward to it.

The day didn't start off so hot, but it's ended okay. Getting work done helped. And tomorrow will be better.

For now, that yarn and those ferrets I mentioned. Food and sleep as well.

Not all at the same time.

Just in case anyone else has trouble naming characters, I thought I'd pass these links along:

Behind the Name
Last Name Meanings

I've been a big fan of Behind the Name for a while, but just discovered Last Name Meanings a bit ago when deciding this poor doomed redshirt had to have a last name before I left the computer today. (I went with Godwin. Now everyone can stop calling him by his first name when it isn't appropriate.) While I was there, I named a few other characters who'd been going by descriptions for 90,000 words. (They weren't important and never had screen time anyway, but surely Angela remembered their names.)

--

I finished the first of three manuscripts I need to crit for friends. I will begin number two in the morning. I'm way behind where I thought I'd be, but they will get done. This week (next week? what day is it?), and then I will go back to UNWATER and get it prettified so my mom will stop asking where it is. :P

I read eight partials today.

The other two will wait for either tomorrow or Monday, depending on whether I actually take tomorrow off. And by off, I mean I will write notes for various stories of my very own.** So that's not really off. I don't understand the concept of not working. Not really.

I wonder what is unclear about the line "please send as an RTF or DOC attachment." WMP? Hello. I had to run through like three programs before I broke down and used Open Office to read it. (I don't *like* Open Office. It's better than the old version, but still rather clunky. And I'm too cheap to buy Word for Mac. I wanted to get *away* from the Evil Empire.)

Time for an episode of Buffy and then some sleep.

**I started a timeline for the Deluge world last night. How the heck was I keeping that stuff in my head before? I need to get the notes for TSUNAMI out before I forget anything, too. And maybe I'll work on the vampire thingie a little...

*bounce*

Unwater
New words: 3018
Total wordcount: 92,120

Darling: spoilery
Typo: Too many characters wrapping their arms around each others' wastes. (Waists, too, but wastes first. EW.)
Deaths: Many. Mostly mermaids today. And one super important one that made me cry.
Mean things: Menace of mermaids. Hypothermia. Stranded in the middle of the fake!Gulf of Mexico. Near drowning. Saltwater in her eyes. Emotional fallout.

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, R, N, and P.

Ferret adventures: Diego was feisty today. He tried to play with Kippy.

Kippy adventures: Kippy did not appreciate Diego's attention.

--

There it is. UNWATER is finished, just a little over the wordcount I predicted, which actually makes sense because I'd gone through the first half and filled it out already. DELUGE grew about 5k in the revision. I expect this one has another 2-3k in it, mostly in the last half.

The scene that made me cry before still gets me. Characters still have sucky lives, and now they've done terrible things and will have to learn to deal with that. At some point I really need to make those lists I keep mentioning, that way I don't forget anything that happens in the other books. I can't risk it dripping out of my ears.

Two books down, three to go. Heh.

Well, not right now.

The plan:

1. Read the ten (10) partials sitting in my inbox.
2. Revise UNWATER for the things I know about before sending it to people who want it. (So let me know if you do?) Mostly some pacing, filling in information earlier (because I thought it needed to wait, and then I never found a place for the big ohnoes reveal), and making sure the character arcs work like I think they do.
3. Crit the full mss in my inbox for friends.
4. Crits on the workshop.

And then? I suspect I will be deciding on whether to do a real revision of THREEFOLD BLIGHT and get it ready for submission, or writing the vampire novel. Anyone want to bet on what really ends up happening? *g*

'Night, folks. See you on the other side. (And thanks for all the cheering this week. I loff and appreciate you.)

Unwater
New words: 2500
Total wordcount: 89,102

Darling: no
Typo: I cannot type "deck" today. Dek. Every time. Also: burn hoes.
Deaths: Many many many humans and monsters perished today.
Mean things: Epic battle. Trigger. The fake!Gulf of Mexico is destroyed. Still no shoes. Kraken. Barge flipped over. Near drowning. Evil mermaid attack, oh noes.

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, R, S and N.

Ferret adventures: Oddly enough, they were pretty behaved today.

Kippy adventures: I loff when Kippies chew on their toes.

--

We're going over 90k. Not much, I think, and a lot of the denouement is already written -- about 1,100 words -- and just needs to have transitions and stuff.

So one more battle with very bad chances of survival, denouement, and that's it. Possibly tomorrow. But possibly not, because the last climax scene will be unbelievably hard, I'm sure. Action scenes kick my butt every time.

Plus, I have Angela stuck out in the middle of the fake!Gulf of Mexico, her only transportation is gone, and there's a menace of mermaids (and mermen!) ready to kill her for what she's done. Well, the many things she's done. This has been another hard book for Angela and she's made a lot of bad decisions. So I have to figure out the mechanics of getting her to somewhere she might stand a chance.

I was going to have the final climax scene be with Angela's grandfather, but we did that in DELUGE and who wants to do that every book? Bleh. Not me. He can sit in the background and plot more. He's got lots of plans. But there's still one antag we haven't resolved conflicts with, yet. I was actually worried about that not feeling resolved in this book, and now I can.

I love when it seems like the book knew all along what it was doing.

Unwater
New words: 2820
Total wordcount: 86,602

Projected wordcount: 90,000
Words needed to reach that: 3398
Average daily wordcount necessary to finish by March 16: 1133

Darling: "But pieces of you are human, and you can choose the Ministry if you want. You can still overcome yourself."
She was overcome, but with dread and misery. They fit inside her cocoon, packed tight and pressed up against her nose and mouth to keep her from breathing. She was overcome with sins and longing and aching, and they smothered her.
Typo: serpants
Deaths: Yes. Quite a few.
Mean things: Broke her heart yet again. Made her work hard. Cramps. Storm. Barefooted.
Research today: Gulf of Mexico - and a map.

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, and R.

Ferret adventures: Diego was crazyman today. He wanted to play with everyone. Fortunately, his enthusiasm is contagious.

Kippy adventures: She was sitting on my lap sleeping when she mrrrrr-ed all angry like, and her hands and ears started twitching. She did it a few times more, and then I decided to pet her and scratch her ears to wake her up. I don't want a startled nightmare Kippy on my lap... Poor thing took a while to wake, and looked really confused when she did.

--

In a fit of semi-productive catwaxing, I wrote a blurb for UNWATER. It's a bit on the long side and could use some revision, but since I can't actually query or anything with this book (it's a sequel), writing the blurb was just to help me focus on what's important in this story. I'm also using it to keep the major story arc for all five books straight. 'Cause man, my brain doesn't hold that much story at once.

Behind the cut if anyone wants to see it. Consider this your warning for massive spoilers in both DELUGE and UNWATER. (DELUGE blurb, if you like, can be found on my website, here. Third down.)

( Cut cut cut... )

--

So, not nearly as productive a day as I'd have liked, especially considering how promising it started. But progress is progress, and I made well over the minimum wordcount to keep up with my deadline. (And now fully expecting to go longer than the anticipated wordcount. Eep. Can I still get this finished by hollailama's deadline? Tune in next week.)

It took me forever to figure out how to ground the setting for the climax. I think I rewrote the same paragraphs four times before it looked decent enough to go on. It still needs some filling in, but it'll work for now. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting the bones right so later I can see what I intended, and hopefully make it right.

Getting closer...

Unwater
New words: 3143
Total wordcount: 83,782

Projected wordcount: 90,000
Words needed to reach that: 6218
Average daily wordcount necessary to finish by March 16: 1555

Darling: Spoilertastic.
Typo: abored the plane / releaf
Deaths: No.
Mean things: Catheter. Got into a fight. Motion sickness.

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, and R.

Ferret adventures: Stewie seems to have (mostly) realized I can tell when he goes and doesn't go in the litter box, so now, in his effort to get as many treats as he possibly can, he uses the box, gets his treat...and then uses it again to get another treat. Yes, he's holding it back to get more treats.

I'm not sure whether pride or shock is the correct response here. I mean, it's smart. He's totally figured out a way to work the system, and in order to keep up the positive reinforcement, I have to give him a treat every time he actually uses the box.

(And no, this doesn't mean he's given up pretending to use the box to weasel more treats out of me. It just means we play the pretending game twice as often.)

--

A bag of Hershey's Kisses came home with me today. One Kiss for every 500 words. It's a pretty decent sized bag, though, and unless this book gets much longer than I anticipated, there will be massive amounts of chocolate left.

Now my mom insists I have a copy of UNWATER in her inbox a week and a day after my first draft deadline, so perhaps I should figure out a reward system for revisions...

Actually, I have partials I need to get through before I can revise. Sorry, mrsroberts. Maybe the Tuesday after that. The 31st? Last day of the month. *g*

--

I moved one scene back to where it had been before. I like it better there after all, and the scene I was writing grew some actual tension and forward motion to fill the space. I think the other scene I moved yesterday will stay moved. It makes the chapter end with a stronger hook, and the structure works better for me with it there. It does this mirror thing with the beginning of that chapter. *waves hands* Like that.

I've gotten through what I had of chapter sixteen. Added some stuff, fixed pacing issues from where I'd banged out the whole thing as fast as I could before I lost it. Other than that, it still breaks my heart.

That's another chapter finished. Just seventeen and a good bit of eighteen to go; I have a couple scenelets of eighteen written so I don't forget, but only about 600 words.

Now, looking at the number of words I said I have to go, and the average wordcount of my chapters, I wonder if I didn't underestimate a little bit. That 6218 remaining could very well be all of chapter seventeen! (My chapters, they are hefty.)

Well, we'll see. I'm feeling pretty confident about it right now, and ready for more writing tonight. *tinybounceandsquee*

Unwater
New words: 2260
Total wordcount: 80,639

Projected wordcount: 90,000
Words needed to reach that: 9361
Average daily wordcount necessary to finish by March 16: 1872

Darling: "I've done a lot of things in my time, but this is far beyond what I ever considered ethical, even with a rather loose definition of the word."
"We do it for Sarygor," he said. "There are no rules in war."
"There used to be."
Typo: No, just rampant overuse of the word "time".
Deaths: No, but soon
Mean things: Nightmare, trauma, captured, needle, hospital gown, hunger, dragged around.

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, and R.

Ferret adventures: Austin turned down a treat. Several times.

Suzi ate it for him.

--

Rearranged some scenes. Well, mostly just moved scenes between chapters and combined a couple for reasons that probably matter only to me. I thought there was more between where I was and chapter sixteen, but there's really not a lot to do there. Information was had, Angela was pushed a little deeper into trauma, and an event I thought might happen was snipped.

I feel like there are loose ends in this. Not the good kind, necessarily, but the kind that should be cleared up by the end of the book. I need to sit down with my list of things to resolve and figure out where I dropped threads. (Part of that, I think, is that antags' plans get put into action in the beginning of this, and are revealed throughout the book, but aren't exactly overcome by the end. There's more to them in later books. But because they're introduced so early, it feels like there should be some kind of resolution. Hm. Must think about that more...)

The good kind of loose ends are in there, I hope. I have foreshadowing for the next book, and hints about something that arrives in the final book. Underwater cities exist, other human countries have been named...

I need like fifty new lists, though, for where information is revealed along the entire story arc (five books), the characters' individual emotional arcs, where events begin and end, themes, and other things I'm too tired to think of right now. I'm also feeling the need for yet more worldbuilding. I need timelines. (*Swoon*)

Well, the miracle of word processors allows for fairly painless (hah!) revisions, and this is what revisions are for. The bones of this story, the things I need to have right in the first draft, are more or less right.

I hope.

(And now that I've moved scenes, I'm unsure if I like it better this way or not. I will have to think more about the mirrors and where I want them, and whether some things are payoff enough by the end of a scene -- because if I combine them like I thought I would, then yes, there is enough payoff. But if I separate them like I had originally, maybe not. Things happen, but things don't happen. Well, I'll leave it like this and decide later. Miracle of word processors and all.)

hollailama said she expects me to have UNWATER finished by Monday. That's a week. No, six days now. I have no idea what day it really is anymore.

According to my stats, I've been averaging 1300 words a day (if I round up) and if I want this puppy done by Monday, I need to get about 2k a day. I have roughly 12k left to go.

*whimper*

Once upon a time this wouldn't have been a challenge at all. But not this book.

Okay, I'm going in. If I'm going to meet hollailama's deadline (and I can't say no to this sort of thing), I'll probably be pretty scarce this week. Fortunately the bulk of Saturday's Slush Stats is already written, and only a few people are actually awake while I'm on third shift.

The last 12k is all plotted out. I can do this. I can, I can.

Unwater
New words: 2093
Total wordcount: 78,379

Darling: No
Typo: Just various capslock tragedies when trying for the elusive "a" key.
Deaths: Yes. One minion go boom.
Mean things: Severed thumb in a box. Trouble with the minions. Critical mistake when breaking into the Ministry building. Got caught. Trauma trigger.

Prayer: Father, please be with J and S.

Ferret adventures: Oscar has decided he likes duck soup now, which is wonderful, even though I'll have to seriously start thinking about warming up more every day. Not sure how greedy he is with it just yet. But it's good because if (when, sigh) he gets sick, he'll have something other than mushy kibble to eat. Soup is good for them.

Kippy adventures: How am I supposed to work with her lounging across my keyboard? Yes, it's one of those funky flat keyboards that comes with the Mac, but that doesn't mean it can be used as another lounging part of the desk.

We will blame all random letters and numbers and punctuation in this manuscript on her.

--

Tonight's writing was...writing. Chapter fifteen isn't the chapter making my heart go pitter-patter at the moment -- and it may never achieve that -- but it still has to be exciting and plot-forwarding. We're tumbling into the climax now.

Except I'm really tired and anxious to be finished with this book, and while this part is important and necessary and will hopefully be exciting after several coats of polish, it's standing between me and chapter sixteen. (Chapter sixteen already has the plot bones, emotion, and dialogue in there. It needs filling out with setting and a few facts that I can only learn by getting through chapter fifteen.) And that's the part I want to get back to, because I want to see if it's as strong as I thought it was when I was writing it. I want to get past it into the explosions and emotional fallout.

So, chapter fifteen. I know what happens and how things end up, and I know some of what information must be revealed here. I can fill it in with shiny setting details and whatever later, but I need to figure out what details are imperative in this draft. And I can only get those by writing the thing. One scene down, one (maybe one and a very short 'nother one) to go.

In spite of that difficulty, chocolate continues to be a powerful motivator. One piece every five hundred words. (Unfortunately I only have two pieces left. I may have to change my goal tomorrow...)

Unwater
New words: 1194
Total wordcount: 76,286

Darling: Not from today, but one I hadn't posted: Blackness swallowed them first, and then the whale did. With their bubble in its mouth, it bore them up and up and up, south and around peninsulas and shelves of land, east and around a series of seamounts, through deep plains, and finally into a shallower area where the whale could not travel. It spat them out and the bubble rose toward the surface. Blinding, glittering sunlight filtered through the water, and Isre watched schools of gemstone fish, corals and anemones, and millions of shells scattered along the reef.
Typo: No.
Deaths: Tomorrow, I'm certain.
Mean things: She needed to accept people's aid when she didn't want to. And trust them to do their job. And crawl through yet another dark hole.
Research: b_twin_1 sharing pus stories. Should have known a farmer would have the best ones. (Well, and any medical professional, I guess. Eee. Eee.)

Prayer: Father, please be with J, S, and R.

Ferret adventures: Now I know why Austin always looks so pretty. He gets Suzi to wash him. He was just lying on his back earlier, twisting around while she washed his neck and face.

Kippy adventures: It was a nice day, so I opened the windows. Kippy sat there pretty much all afternoon and evening. Who needs monkeys when you have a breeze?

--

I finished chapter thirteen at last. It wasn't a hard chapter, but it was still a challenge to get Angela to play nicely with strangers she doesn't like. (With good reason.) And even more of a challenge to get them to play nicely with her.

Then chapter fourteen was already mostly written, just needed an ending, and I got that done. So yay. Chapter fifteen is blank, but chapter sixteen is mostly written! Which leaves seventeen and eighteen, and that's it.

The rest is all plotted out. I know exactly what happens, and -- for the most part -- how it happens. It's just a matter of writing it. (Sometimes more difficult than it should be. *sigh*)

I like this book. I like the world, the characters, and I even like how difficult it is to write, because I think it's going to turn out really good once I have some distance from it. But it will be nice to have a real break from it, too. Not the kind of break where I revise something else and know that I'll be back here in a few days, but the kind where I have a couple months away from it. (And maybe longer. UNWATER is a sequel to DELUGE, and DELUGE isn't sold, so there's no reason to fret over it too much.)

After this, I plan on doing some crits and catching up pretty much everywhere that I've been slacking since I started this. And then...vampires, maybe. I need to do a bit of plot and worldbuilding pondering before, but once I get UNWATER out of my head and have the brainspace for vampires, folding laundry or taking a shower should make story appear.

(Maybe a title will appear so I can give it a notebook and Scriv file. Hello, vampires? Hello? *crickets*)

While working on chapter thirteen tonight, I almost referenced something that happened in chapter fourteen. This is because I wrote most of fourteen before chapter thirteen, and in my head, fourteen had already happened.

I've also had some trouble with not referencing things that happened in chapter sixteen, because I wrote chapter sixteen before thirteen or fourteen.

As much as I enjoy clicking to the next chapter tab and discovering the chapter already written, all this time travel is going to make my very linear brain explode. Or it's going to cause a paradox and the universe will cease to exist. Won't that be unfortunate?