I think I’m down to the home stretch on Muirwood – another 5-6 chapters and it should be finished. As I was writing a chapter this weekend, the convergence of the scene really prompted me to accelerate to the ending. It felt like the pacing, the build-up, was finally coming to a head and needed to reach a major climax. It’s a big decision for me to pull-in the ending like this. In my mind from the beginning, I had thought about where a major confrontation would take place. But I wasn’t exactly clear how to get there from where I was. Then it dawned on me that all the flow of the story had led to that particular point. I didn’t need to wait another chapter or two to get there – I could execute the climax right now. It’s exciting to be so close. But as per my process, I’ll take the month of May off of writing new material and re-read and edit the entire book again. That will give me an even better feeling for the pacing and if now is the right time to trigger the climactic sequence.
Also of note – I was invited by my sister-in-law to give an author’s conference at her elementary school in El Dorado Hills in two weeks. Haven’t had an engagement like this in many years, and I’m looking forward to it. We’ll see how it went in my next posting.
