Quick one today.

I’m hard at work on the novel, which I feel like I’m writing in collaboration with Drunk-Matt. Some weekends he’ll give me 10 pages of compelling prose, others he’ll hyperfixate on fact-checking and leave me with 700 words of crap that I have to rewrite. I’ve all but booted him from the project, which my liver and waistline are thanking me for.

Speaking of wordcounts, I abandoned that exercise. I now know that I have 54,674 words (138 pages) and I’m well into act three.

Last chapter had some brutality in there, hope I haven’t gone too far.

Just re-read On Writing by Stephen King, I’m going to start making that an annual tradition. Can’t recommend it enough if you’re a writer, or any kind of creative, or just like his work.

Also breezed through Devil’s Advocate by Steve Cavanagh, the latest in his series on the con-man-turned-lawyer Eddie Flynn, good stuff.

Will post a snippet of The House Always Wins when I’m happy with it. For now, I’m back to the keyboard with a tall glass of water.