Okay, so obviously work on the story I’m including in the TUYO world companion has been slow and difficult, what with the many little distractions pattering about underfoot.
The babies are spending a lot of time out of the puppy room / the playpen. Of course sometimes one of the babies makes a mistake, but obviously I have to let them make mistakes in order to say no no, please do that outside. Early corrections are a little nudge with my toe to push the puppy off balance and make him stop in, as it were, mid-mistake. Then a quick trip outside (another trip down the stairs, notice).
On the plus side, both the bigger puppies can now come up AND go down the stairs by themselves. And I’m almost certain both are now going out on the deck to do their business, which is adequate, though I will be gently suggesting that going down the stairs to the yard is better.
The tri boy will be leaving me on Sunday, by the way. He’s ready, but it will be a wrench.
Doesn’t he look huge? He is actually only six pounds. His fat brother is seven. They will probably both wind up a perfectly ordinary eighteen pounds or so. That is Naamah near him, by the way, and Leda at the end of the couch. At this moment, the Blen puppy was lying tucked under my legs and Ish and Morgan were crowded on the pillows at the right-hand side of the couch.
Anyway! So, I’ve had this clear idea about the ending of “Returning Hokino’s Knife” or whatever the title will turn out to be. I started in the wrong pov, realized that almost at once, switched to Arayo’s pov, realized I had fallen into first person, hauled myself back to third person, and then got the ending and that (finally) smoothed out the writing process.
Only last night I GOT to the ending and … it wasn’t right. It wasn’t the ending.
I wasn’t sure what to do about that, so I went to bed. Well, I took all the puppies out one last time and sat on the steps to watch them romp around and then carried them all back in and got them settled. THEN I went to bed. Then this morning I woke up about four AM (normal) and lay there thinking about that story while waiting for my alarm to go off. And I think now I have the ending in my head! The actual ending! I got up before my alarm went off so I could write down the crucial last moment quick before I forgot it, though actually I seldom forget crucial bits once I finally think of them.
So, with any luck at all, I’ll be finishing this story this evening. Whew! It’s, I don’t know, probably about 40,000 words or so, about 120 pages, something like that. I guess that makes it a novella rather than a short story.
The entire TUYO World Companion just ticked over 70,000 words, but the other part of it, the non-story part, will probably get longer. Heaven knows about the story. That could get shorter or maybe longer. I have a few notes about revision and then I guess I will be sending it to a beta reader to find out if it is a decent story. THEN I will put it up for preorder, because really, once the story is in decent shape, everything else is detail work. Plus I have the cover! So that means it can go up for preorder soon. I’m definitely thinking July 1 would be a great release date as long as I’m confident I can hit that. I’ll be able to make that call soon!
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