Update: Still moving along

Not much to say except that I ought to break 100,000 words for Bereket this afternoon, or maybe tomorrow, depending. Thus, we had better be well over halfway. And I think we are!

Generally, I have some vague notion how long a novel will go, then overshoot that idea by 40% to (sigh) 80%. This time, oddly, I had no real expectation or feeling about the overall probable length except that it wouldn’t be short. By the time I’m this far in, as a rule I have a better idea about the ultimate length, though I may be ridiculously optimistic and continue to underestimate by kind of a lot.

But certain signs are good. We hit an important chapter over the weekend and now half the characters have some basic idea about what is going on. Various obstacles have been surmounted, or pulled out of the way, which clears the path for those characters to move toward the endgame — this requires physical travel, but not like a thousand miles. A few days’ travel, some of which is likely to be elided.

Then the other important characters are also learning something about what is actually going on, so they’ll be in position to move forward pretty soon as well, so that everyone is in the same place when they need to be. This probably implies a braided narrative, which is accurate. Bereket himself takes 3/4 of the chapters. Every fourth chapter — at this point, and I think that’s how it’s going to stay — is carried by an Ugaro we have met before, but not recently. That may be enough for you to guess who this is. It’s not really a secret, and will be less of one given the chapter headings will tell you who’s carrying the pov in that chapter.

Ryo and Aras haven’t shown up yet. No one here knows they’re on their way, but they probably are. They have a lot farther to travel, so they’d better have started moving west a week or two ago, even if they’re moving fast. They’ll be around the edges, mostly. They have to be, especially Aras, who told Sekaran that they were peripheral to these events. The definition of “peripheral” is not firm, but obviously neither of them can actually be central. Nor will they be.

Anyway, though we’re not that close to the end, I do think we’re over the halfway mark and should now move fairly briskly. I’m hoping for a length of 140K to 150K for the draft, then probably a bit of trimming.

Six days left in November! Seven counting today! That’s likely to bring the draft to about 120,000 words, or just about exactly 100,000 words in November. That may not finish this book — I don’t think that’s at all likely — but it sure puts it in a good position. I should easily finish this draft before Christmas. That should almost guarantee a release date early next year. Not January. March. That will allow lots of time to polish it up, work on something else, schedule a preorder, drop Bereket early at Patreon, etc etc, So unless things change in a major way, March 2.

AND

This gives me room to work on something else over Christmas Break, yay! My best guess — this is a guess — is that my schedule for 2026 will be: Bereket, Adamantine (Invictus III), Hedesa II, Unforgiving Sky (NFS II). I really want to stress that I’m not sure! That’s truly a guess!

Meanwhile, gray gray gray with intermittent drizzle, ugh. Here’s a memory of a recent-ish fall day that was prettier than today. This is a smoke tree, Cotigus, but I don’t recall the variety.

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