Phew.

At just over ninety thousand words I feel able to declare what began life as 'Susannah Elphinstone' and what is currently 'Longest shadows reach' finished.  By which I mean after many many re-readings and writings I think it is, apart from minor tweaks, finished.

It is the follow up to what was .'Not wanted on voyage' and became 'A step so grave' which I temporarily abandoned after submitting it to an agent and a book doctor at York's Festival of Writing in September. This had undergone three major re-writes and I did not then have the stamina for an immediate fourth one.

I also have 'Making good' awaiting a final edit - the fourth and final on in the Bridie and Sean saga.

My intention is to sign up for the six week  'Self editing your novel', course run by the Writers Workshop which begins January 7th, using 'Longer shadows reach'  but before that I intend to play a bit more with the cover design.

4 a.m. not too soon

Yay!!  While 4 a.m. is too soon to get up in these November mornings (unless I really cannot contain myself - in my first NaNoWriMo year I once got up at 2) the hour waiting for the more acceptable 5 a.m. was spent pondering on 'Making good' which I have, over the past few days, been re-reading.   At 120K it needed, as I was well aware, bringing to a close, but up to now I have been unable to see a way, a point at which to do it.

Probably two-thirds through writing 'Damage limitation' I had pencilled in a natural ending - the tenth anniversary celebration.   The whole series was meant to end there, but with the final half of the final chapter already written, something unexpected (to me, at least!) happened at the  beginning of that chapter, which necessitated the writing of 'Making good.'

This, I am (fairly) sure, will be the final one.   I suspect I have already written what needs to be a final chapter but have then run on past it:  something more mildly dramatic was needed to underline it, and in my early morning hour's pondering I think I've found it.

Now I have to write it (that's the relatively easy bit;  the first sentence of the chapter is already in my head) and then re-jig the other chapters so as to take place before not after - a little tricky, but far from impossible.

To work.

Another cover

Displacement activity doesn't take place only when I'm not allowed to write but also when the words stop flowing.

'Making good' - as with 'Damage limitation', the title came into being while creating the cover - is about thirty-four thousand words done - maybe a quarter of it, and currently I don't know where it is going. 

I've been this way before:  had not even expected to be writing a sequel until halfway through the penultimate chapter of 'Damage limitation' and have enough in the way of other projects for it not to be a problem.   

Yet.  

Fingers crossed it won't be long-term, because I get very ratty if I don't have something in progress.