Words: 8,256.
Total words: 25,668.
Reason for stopping: I have finished chapter seven, and need to finish writing an essay.
Music: mostly Pink, Dar Williams, and Ludo.
The cats: all sacked out on the bed like fuzzy potatoes.

I am...working. I am making progress and I am working and by the standard length of a Toby book (roughly 100,000 to 110,000 words, give or take a chapter), I broke 25% of this book today. Which is incredible.

To be honest, finishing Blackout just killed me. It racked me up one side and down the other, and it's not really over yet; I'm still waiting on the editorial letter from The Other Editor, at which point, the Machete Squad gets to attack the manuscript again while I make the changes he feels are necessary (and he's going to be right, because he's always been right so far, and I trust him, which is wonderful). I was terrified going back into Ashes of Honor. What if I couldn't find my footing? What if I couldn't figure out where I stood?

I didn't need to be afraid. Toby is as natural to me as breathing at this point, and while her stories aren't always easy (on either one of us), they're familiar territory. I like it in her world. I can stay there for as long as I need to. It's comfortable, and it's mine, and it's one of my imagination's true homes.

I think this one is going to be just fine.

Twenty-five days. That's how long we have between here and One Salt Sea. A dollar for each of those days would buy me a bucket of chicken from KFC, or two new paperbacks (with tax), or two tickets to a matinee, if someone else bought the popcorn. An hour for each of those days would give me time to take a nice long nap.

Twenty-five days.

I'm still amazed that this book is something real, that it's about to be something people can buy and have for their very own. I'm still sort of going "but but but the first one just came out, how can we already be on book five?" I'm writing book six. I'm dreaming book eight. And I'm scared as hell of the fact that book five is about to be on shelves.

I think milestones are always big and hard and scary. But this one is just weird. I am amazed and aghast and a little bit afraid of what comes next.

For Late Eclipses, I provided lists of facts and answered questions to ease people toward for release. What should I do this time? Suggestions welcome.

ETA: Guys, I can't, and won't, do drabbles. Not only are they very brain-intensive (and wouldn't you rather have book six?), but the effort of keeping them from being full of spoilers would explode my head. I've tried to indicate nicely that this isn't an option, and now I'm just saying it.