You may wonder why the word count inches along and then flies toward the end…

I outline, not your typical school outline, but sometimes bits and pieces of conversation, events, notes, etc, which I erase as I move along, so the total word count both shrinks and expands unpredictibly, sometimes so that even I don’t have a real sense where I am. Stories take as many words as it takes to tell them, and while I have an idea how long a book should be, density also affects it. Now we’re down to almost no outline left, and things happening that were intended to happen, without more outline getting written. We’re getting fairly close to the end and I know what the end is, but this one has just worked out oddly, a story that’s going to answer some puzzles and give you others…