Last night was a triumph of sheer bloody-mindedness over, well, everything else.

You see, I didn’t get started writing until after 3 a.m. And I couldn’t sleep in today. And I had been watching horror movies since 11 that morning. And when I reached eleven hundred and some-odd words — a good total for the day, regardless — I made myself go just a little bit further, so I could retire for my insufficient night’s sleep knowing that I had crossed the 70K threshold.

So yeah. 70045 words on Midnight Never Come.

Act Four is giving me hives. This is the part of the book where, if I were still a little baby writer, somebody would probably sit the main characters down and Explain Everything they need to know to deal with the rest of the plot. But I’m not a little baby writer, and so I have to try to complicate it: interrupt the flow of information by throwing in threats and interpersonal conflicts and awkward moments and assassination attempts and misunderstandings and people forgetting to mention things and leaping to the wrong conclusions. (Which is why a part of the book I could have disposed of in a few thousand overly straightforward words will instead eat an entire act.)

My difficulties arise from figuring out who knows what, when they learned it, what will spark them into mentioning it, what conclusions they have drawn about it, and how I can juggle all of this together into a story that leads the main characters to where they need to go.

My thanks to everyone who contributed suggestions on how to write the crazy Tiresias scenes. I have a variety of plans in mind, some of which do involve staying up all night — more than I have been already, that is — and hopefully that will work out well.

Mush onward, to 80 and then 90K.

Authorial sadism: First Deven complains that I don’t give him any answers; then he complains about the answers I give him. Ungrateful bastard. (Though I will admit I tried to make “I did not have to” the most painful five words I’ve inflicted on him yet.)

LBR quota: I found a way to kill another character. Aren’t you proud of me?