Update: There we go, finally finished!

All right, so, naturally this took a bit longer than I thought it would and OF COURSE it went to nine chapters instead of eight (not counting the epilogue), but now, finally, I have a complete draft of Lisig. It’s 52,000 words, 155 pp, so when I ask myself, “HOW can it be taking this long to finish Adamantine?” the answer will be, “Well, probably writing an extra 52,000 words in the middle made a difference.”

I need to read through it; I’ve done a bit of tweaking to early chapters — not much at all, but a few sentences that set up something later, or at least are consistent with something later. But basically, it’s finished, and I can drop the whole thing at Patreon.

AND NOW I can finally turn my attention back to Adamantine without this other story pushing and shoving for attention. Others, yes, but at least not this one.

So, naturally, I also realized that I should probably step back and insert a new chapter in Adamantine. This active, adventurous, dangerous stuff had occurred off-screen, and I said to myself (eventually), Wait, why is this off-screen? Wouldn’t it be better to show this active, adventurous, dangerous stuff? And, although there was a reason I hadn’t done so in the first place, in retrospect, it wasn’t a good enough reason to justify that decision, so here I am, putting that stuff into the story.

But!

I’m not a hundred percent sure HOW to put it into the story. Separate chapter? Or not a separate chapter? That’s the question. In Invictus, you may recall, chapters are either in Syova’s point of view, or Ila’s point of view, and at no time did I ever worry about whether this was fine. It was obviously fine. But at several points in Adamantine, I’ve found myself braiding a chapter or two — switching back and forth between Desya and Erec Chatham with spacers, in quick succession, about five pages per scene rather than 20 or more pages per chapter. It just seems to work better? I think? And right at the moment, I’m handling this new chapter the same way, braiding it with a chapter that was already there.

Is this a good idea? Who knows? At this point, I’m not sure.

One good thing about writing novels with a word processor instead of chiseling the words into stone tablets is that it doesn’t matter all that much; if I change my mind later, I can unbraid the chapters with no trouble. Well, with an acceptable amount of trouble, anyway.

So that’s where I am right now: Lisig finally finished, back in the depths of Adamantine.

Meanwhile, Conner and Joy check out the new couch cover.

This isn’t exactly a couch cover — it’s a king-sized flannel sheet. These work PERFECTLY as couch covers that can be easily tossed in the laundry, I’ve used flannel sheets this way for a long time, those sheets were getting worn out, so I ordered some more. This one is fabulously soft, much softer than my previous flannel sheets, and I love it personally, though possibly the dogs don’t care as much. It turns out the flat sheet fits the big couch, the fitted sheet fits the loveseat couch, and I stuffed one of the king-sized pillowcases, stitched it shut, and made an instant matching pillow for the couch. Who knows, I might even use the other pillowcase as an actual pillowcase! Anyway, very highly recommended as couch covers, and I bet they would be fabulous as sheets, except I would die of heat prostration.