Writing update: The Blade That Whispers Hate, or, how chapter 22 almost killed me*

As of this morning, the word count for BWH stands at 48,260.

The last month or so has not been as fruitful, writing-wise, as I might have hoped. Deadlines at work and real-life stress have conspired to keep me from staying on track with this book. The particular chapter that I'd become stuck on (chapter 22, for those keeping score) wasn't a terribly long one. None of the chapters in BWH are terribly long. But chapter 22 was rather involved. Getting all the characters from point A to point B was a lot more difficult, and tiresome, than I had expected.

Writing this chapter was a lot like digging a ditch. Not much in the way of inspiration, but a whole lot of perspiration. I honestly took no joy in it, which is rare for me. I'm not saying I always rise up singing to face the keyboard, but usually I find satisfaction in some portion of the work at hand, be it a turn of phrase, a nice little fillip of characterization or description, what have you.

The only satisfying thing about chapter 22 was finishing it.

But it is finished. That's the good news.

The bad news is, there are about five chapters left to write, and they're the ones (like cursed 22) that I have so far avoided because I wasn't sure exactly what happened in them, plot-wise.

Did I mention that in this book I've skipped around and wrote the bits I knew first? I didn't do that for Thagoth/Thief Who Spat. That one I had a rough and ready outline for, and knew more or less what happened in each chapter. For BWH, since I knew how it ended (yes, I have the ending written), I figured it would be easy to just write all the stuff that was clear in my mind, and that would make those dark areas in the plot more illuminated.

It hasn't turned out that way. Well I mean it has, but it hasn't been painless.

*pure hyperbole