Sometimes it’s determination that gains results. And sometimes it’s something else. I think yesterday was a mixture of both when it came to working on The Open Book. By the end of it all, I had 13 new pages added, and somewhere after 1:00am, I added another 2.5. I will be back at it today, to the best of my ability, and while I know better than to challenge myself to match yesterday’s number, I hope to. I will try to. No promises. I have the rest of the book mapped out with these gaps and un-ended chapters, so I at least know what I’m facing to get to the end. I must say, there are only a very few places in this book where the chasms seem daunting, and even a few of the smaller leaps. For the most part, the difficulty is in keeping the environments insane and magical and weird (if you’ve ever read the first two books in the trilogy, you’ll know exactly what I mean!). I’m facing one of those moments right now and the funny thing about it, is that all I have to say is already there in note form–I just have to storybook it. Well, I did only just get up, and it was a fairly rough night that left me with something of a piercing headache, so I’ll just ease into the writing with a bit of coffee and see where that gets me. I would honestly be happy to get half of what I did yesterday done today. That would finish up two chapters, by my estimations, and that is pretty decent. Current page count, by the way: 191. While my coffee was brewing this morning, I caught myself wondering what book I would (heavily) work on next. That’s both a motivating and a frightening sign. Motivating because I would love to jump right into another book (not counting the anthology–I’m talking about novels) as soon as this one is completed, but frightening because I know how easy it would be to stop short on this one to move onto another. I think I’m mostly safe though as far as The Open Book is concerned. The end really is in sight. It’s harder to put a book down once I’ve reached this stage.

I did take about a half hour or so (okay, maybe more like an hour) to work on the Melisites/Kunvaks story yesterday. It has almost all of its ending at this point…Okay, now that I’m thinking about it, I was going through quite a lot of it in my head while trying to fall asleep early this morning, so maybe I don’t have it all down just yet–I will have to take a look at that and fix it, if not. Anyhow, more was created to help this story along. I still don’t know what I will end up doing with it–whether it will turn into a book and be released to the public, or if it will just end up in a one-time-printed edition on my shelf. So far, it’s not long enough to even be a novella, so that will factor in the end. (A Potagerie of Rejects isn’t quite as long as I’d like it to be either, just yet, but with the finishing up of at least 2 more short-shorts {perhaps a 3rd?} it could get closer to my minimum of 150 pages…) There are, of course, some really big spaces that I have to fill in for the story–I did have to jump around to appease my muse at the time of working on it–and that can add up to many more pages rather quickly. I really just have to write it until it’s written out, and then assess what it has become. As much as I feel I’m not really into witchy/wizardy/mystical stories and worlds, I do want to see this one done. I can also–easily–envision it as a movie, and that is a little scary to consider. I just made a Facebook post yesterday stating that for no one but Guillermo del Toro would I allow any of my books to evolve into film. I really do mean that. I’d hand over the Twins Trilogy in a heartbeat because I know exactly what he could do with it–and it would be BREATHTAKINGLY GORGEOUS. He would probably turn the Melisites/Kunvaks story into something pretty stunning as well. Not likely to ever happen–I’ll be thrilled to stand in the same room with the man–but it’s not over yet.