Finishing a book, it's all in the layering

Shut cat out of bedroom last night; I slept through 'til this morning. Well, almost. Gracie the Greyhound's feet in my face at 3:30 was a temporary annoyance. However, Gracie will move her feet, Natasha the Cat will not move her meow, or even turn down the volume. We feel bad for her -- she misses Boris. For those of you who don't know, we had to have Boris put to sleep last spring, inoperable tumor. Boris & Natasha had been together since we found them as kittens in our local ASPCA. Natasha will be 18 years old in June. Getting another cat is not an option as the greyhounds will regard it as a squeeky toy -- a one-time-only squeeky toy. We give her all the extra attention we can, and Lucy our Jack Russell gives Natasha plenty of grooming attention -- that cat has the cleanest ears on the planet.

I'm presently working my way through Bewitched & Betrayed one chapter at a time (and a chapter a day if I can at all do it). I'm layering on the details, enriching the story, and tying loose plotlines together. I have approx. 7 weeks to do this and pick up at Chapter 19 where I had stopped writing to go back and add the details, new character names, dialogue tags/action, etc. So I have to write Chapters 19-25 from scratch, probably no more than three days per chapter. It's gonna be tight to make that May 1 deadline, but I'm also planning on taking 3-4 vacation days between now and then to give myself some full writing days other than weekends. I'll get there, but it probably won't be pretty. Then again, it never is. ; ) Stress will be running rampant through the Shearin household.

One thing you may notice with my blogs between now and then, since I'm writing them first thing in the morning when I get up (and after I've taken care of the dogs & cat), is that you'll be getting more of a stream of consciousness (or unconsciousness) blog post. Whatever comes into my brain is what's gonna end up on the page. Hmmm, could be entertaining, and revealing.

I think for the rest of the Saturdays until the release of The Trouble with Demons, that the Saturday Fun Pic will turn into the Saturday Snippet. This Saturday, I'll post the first page of Bewitched & Betrayed. And for those of you who don't want to be tormented by reading the first page of a book that you won't see for another year, avert your eyes on Saturday. ; ) The remaining Saturdays will be short snippets from The Trouble with Demons.

Well, I'm off to the treadmill for 20 mins., then breakfast, get ready and go to my day job.

Make it a great day!
Lisa