Words: 3,001.
Total words: 45,578.
Reason for stopping: I have to go to rehearsal, and I've finished chapter twelve.
Music: mostly the Counting Crows.
Lilly and Alice: prowling around the bedroom, sensing my imminent departure.

And now we hit the point at which The Brightest Fell stands up in a field with its arms spread, shouts, "FUCK YOU, I'M AN ANTEATER!" and goes trundling off to do whatever the hell it feels like it, whether I like it or not. Seriously, the outline has just gone out the window, where it can be used as nesting material by the local crows. And the book is SO MUCH BETTER as a consequence. Sometimes my characters give me a headache.

Highlights from this session involve fun with physics and the difficulties of getting good help these days. Also Alice bringing me a dead mouse, three times, before I finally gave in and allowed her to flush it down the toilet, because I am a total pushover.

I'm not going to pretend that this book is suddenly at a stage where it's going to become fun and easy, but it's definitely swinging along a lot faster and more sanely than it was before, which is a pretty bad-ass change, and I think I'm really going to like where it's going. Hopefully, you will, too, but while I write the final draft for everyone else, I write the first draft for me. And right now, I'm making me pretty damn happy.

Go team Toby.