An ending and finalizing the timeline

This is two weeks overdue, but I updated the progress meter in the sidebar with the most recent word count.  I put an ending on the novel two weeks ago today, which is HUGE news.  I wrote 3,400 words that day -- almost 2,000 at a NaNoWriMo-style write-in I attended with a friend, and then when I got home I just kept going until I reached the end.  I knew I was close, and didn't want to leave it undone at that point.  So I finished it.

No loose ends and minding the details

I just updated the progress meter in the sidebar to reflect my current word count of 94,172.  I was thinking that my rough draft of Book 3 would be just shy of the initial goal of 100k (kind of like the rough draft of Pandora's Box was just shy of the initial goal of 80k), but now I'm thinking it will be a little over.  How much over I don't know -- I think I have 6k to go until the end, easily, but then I also have to go back and fill in a chapter that I missed earlier on.

Motivation

Last night I wrote another nearly 3,000 words.  I've now got a little over 90k total, which is more than I wrote on the first novel by more than 10k.  I think I'll need to cut some ultimately -- the first quarter or third of the novel may meander a little too much -- but I'll see when I go back to do revisions.  In the meantime, a new character has proven himself to be a plot ninja, and is going to tell his story before the end of the book, so I may surpass 100k after all.

Almost done!

I just updated my side bar word count meter to reflect my work over the weekend.  I wrote nearly 6k over the weekend: 3,500 words on Saturday and 2,400 words on Sunday.  Considering I've been stalled since the end of November, I'm pretty pleased with that chunk of progress.

New Year's resolutions

Unfortunately, my goal from mid-December -- of finishing the Ruby Ransome novel I am currently working on before the end of the year -- did not pan out.  I hardly even worked on the novel after that point.  I need a kick start to get me going again, and I'm hoping my New Year's resolutions will do just that.

I don't usually take New Year's resolutions very seriously, because I know they rarely ever work.  Last year I didn't even make any very big resolutions -- instead, I made a reading list of five classics I wanted to read before the end of the year, and even that didn't happen.  (This year I've increased that to seven -- why I think I can read seven when I couldn't read five, I don't know, but perhaps part of the problem was waiting too long to start.  Throughout the year I kept thinking, "I still have plenty of time!"  And you can see where that got me.)