I’m making some tweaks to bits and pieces of Between the Lion and the Wolf (BLW), and for some reason, I read through some of my prior posts here—including one from January, where I claimed I thought I’d be finished with BLW well before 2020. It’s November, 2019, and I’m still writing Chapter XVII.

Yeah, I’m not gonna complete this thing before midnight, December 31, 2019.

Sure, I would have loved to have this whole thing in the bag before, well, today. Even though I don’t, I’m not too upset with myself. I do think I could have invested a little more time here and there churning out the words, however. Most writers, I think, would agree: it’s a lot easier to edit something that exists, no matter how terrible, than it is to edit something that doesn’t exist in the first place!

Heh. I almost wrote something about getting back on track, but such a statement implies I was on a track in the first place. I’m pretty sure that’s untrue. Still, even though January, 2020, is just around the corner, I suppose it’s not outside the realm of possibility that I’ll crank out the last three chapters before then. (The realm of probability is a whole other realm.)

I mentioned in a prior post that I’d adjusted the layout for Beneath the Vault of Stars (BVS). It’s cleaner, from a typographical perspective, and I think I’ve snuffed out a few grammatical errors, too. (Ideally, said errors would have never seen the light of day.) BLW will share the same aesthetic as this revised version of BVS. So will Book III, whenever it gets here.

Some of my characters are surprising me. I just hope their quirks still read as believable. It’s hard to care about unrealistic caricatures, or automatons forced to behave in “just-so” ways to accommodate a narrative. I’ve said before one of my goals with these people is consistency, and that hasn’t changed. I guess I’ll have to wait and see what others think. Y’know, once they’ve written a review…Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.

Paracord

Completely unrelated to anything from BVS or BLW, over the summer, while up in Maine, I got back into paracord projects. Years and years ago, I made a few bracelets. They weren’t too bad, but I’ve looked up some new patterns—even learned to tie a respectable diamond knot—and yeah, it’s a time sink for sure. Time better spent writing, maybe, but hey.

I posted one photo on Instagram, so if you follow me there, you’ve seen it. I’ll post a few more photos below.

Okay, enough of all of this. Maybe, if I keep myself focused, I can get BLW finished—maybe published—before January, 2021? I’m probably more excited than anyone to see what happens in the last three chapters—and in whatever comes after that in Book III!