95,500 words

I know.

I seem to be writing two seperate endings to this story. The one I originally anticipated (my 'mental outline', as it were) ties most everything up in a neat bow, but it feels protracted and contrived now that I'm up to the writing of it.

Track Two is fast-paced, exciting and grew completely out of the moment and the decisions the characters really would have made (assuming they, and their universe, were real). It also leaves me with an ungodly amount of loose ends, more than I can wrap up in the denouement.

Writing both of them is starting to piss me off. I suspect the thing to do is write to the end of Track Two and then see what the characters want to do next.

Actually, I *think* I may have an idea....

Meantime, I rang mum and dad for Easter yesterday. They don't know it, but their combined small talk gave me an idea for a creepy-ass thriller set in small town Georgia, where they live. I'll let it marinate, see if it sinks its hooks in deep enough.

Often, I finish a book and feel a little empty. I'm always glad the damn thing's over, but I also miss it. Like a lot of writers, I worry that maybe that one was my last book ever. Foolishness, of course, but those small doubting voices usually are foolish.

It's nice, too, when I'm between books. I catch up on my reading. Doing only one job feels like a vacation. And I quite enjoy the editing process.

But like any addict, I can't wait for my skin to start itching again. I don't want to be coasting on the effects of the last story, I want to be mainlining the next one.

This isn't the post I meant to write at all today...

I'm going to go work on my book again.

Haere ra!