80K on the nose. It’s a meaningless benchmark, when you get down to it — the lower limit of what one can generally sell as adult fantasy, but not the lower limit of my contract — but it’s a nice round number, and the point at which I start feeling like the book will end sometime soon.

Where by “soon” I mean “in another thirty thousand words or so.”

I can see from here to the end of Act Four. Most of Act Five has fallen into place in my head, except for a few things involving Deven. I’m chugging up the last long slope of the rollercoaster; once we crest the top of that hill, it’s going to be a downhill charge from here to the end.

Probably. I’ve been known to be wrong before. But it doesn’t feel like I’ll be wrong.

I’m in the middle of the second incredibly delicate conversation with Elizabeth. At least this time it’s a conversation with Elizabeth, instead of a conversation at Elizabeth like the last one was, damned canny close-mouthed queen that she is. The rest of Act Four will go something like this: oh crap, I think we were wrong; a tricky conversation with a personified natural landmark; oh holy shit were we wrong. Then on to Act Five, and Blowing Stuff Up. (feyangel, you may consider that an unintended tribute to BSU Pyrotechnics.)

I just wish I could figure out that one last piece of Act Five.

Authorial sadism: We’re in the part of the book where I lose track of it all. But aside from what I did to Suspiria, I think my favorite is probably the bit where Deven and Lune realize how different their two Courts are. Or, y’know, having to talk at Elizabeth, instead of with her.

LBR quota: We’re never without all three these days, but rhetoric was at the top of today’s menu, with the other two as side dishes.