She’s crept up to 99%, leaving her with 12,908 to go!

At the moment, she’s on the last chapter of LAC 15. Even if we got horribly windy and sidetracked, which we have been known to do on occasion, I don’t think she’ll hit the million mark with this book. 😥

Then, once she finishes 15, there will be a major lull with her numbers while she edits the first draft. She’s close, but it could be a long while yet, and Scooter’s birthday (August 13) is still within the realm of possibilities.

Sympathies to those whose predicted dates have passed. Good luck to those whose dates still hang in the balance. And, DWD high fives all the way around.

A little less than 20,000 to go!

Two percent of a million, how hard could that be?

(Please do not tell the author I just said that!)

She gets a bump on the Mil-O-Meter to 965,066! That leaves 34,934 to go.

She’s moving into Chapter 6 on LAC 15 and has passed the 11,000 mark. The end is nowhere in sight, but since the beginning is, I will see about swiping the first chapter very soon.

The Mil-O-Meter gets a nudge. She’s now in need of less than 40,000 words, and I’m figuring she’ll get it with LAC 15. She’s in its fourth chapter, and the story is barely off the ground so, yes, I’m thinking we’ll get it instead of just Laura in one of her books. It should be all of us!

The Mil-O-Meter over there gets a bump to 955,596. She’s finally moved to 96%. That leaves her 44,404 to go.

Some of you left predictions in another thread about when she’ll hit that million. If others have cats and/or crystal balls and want to add to the list, please do so on this comment thread. You don’t have to use a real name or even a real email address. Just pretend you’re an author and make up some shit, and predict away. Or… Simply cross your fingers that Scooter gets a cameo for his birthday.

The writer is slumping again! Apparently, she’s finding out that the ‘quick’ 14.5 she’s working on is proving to be harder than a regular LAC book. I wonder why that would be…

Chapter 1

Something roused me from my sleep. A dream, I figured and nuzzled closer to Claudia, who seemed herself to be stirring.

“Door,” she mumbled. A second later, she shot straight up, yelling, “Someone’s at the door!”

Her own dream, I further figured, but another second later, our dumb-ass doorbell corrected me. My eyes sped to the clock radio: 1:28. I dove for the lamp switch as Claudia hurried into her robe.

“Who could it be, Kate?”

“No frickin’ clue,” I replied, which was the truth, but one that didn’t acknowledge the feeling of doom in the pit of my stomach. “Wait for me. I’m going with you.”

The doorbell sounded again as I raced to put on sweatpants and a T-shirt. I caught up with her at our bedroom door, and together, we bolted down the hallway.

After I flipped on the porch light, we stole a peek, and my stomach instantly lurched.

There stood Holly.

The look on her face was cruelly reminiscent of the one she wore on the day Laura had been shot. Scared shitless, I seized the doorknob. 

I barely had the door open an inch before Claudia yelled, “Holly, what’s wrong?” 

With a red, puffy face, she answered, “Laura and I had a fight.”

Holy frickin’ shit, hell had frozen over!

Continue reading Lighting a Fire Under the Saddle →

Okay, the latest book has been released, and the author is trying to get back into the rhythm of writing and not editing. I must say we’ve had a decent amount of time off lately, too, and it has been kind of nice. She’s a frickin’ whip-cracker most of the time. But, the LAC show must go on. She’s focusing on 14.5, and she has some ideas for another Laura book.

(Was just thinking about how the hell she’s going to title 14.5. It wouldn’t be an S-word. It wouldn’t be an L-word+1. Hmm… S-word + L-word+1? S-word L-word? Whatever the hell she wants it to be?)

Anyway…

Since she’s so word-count obsessed, I was thinking maybe another public display of her progress (or lack thereof) may help her move at a steady pace, allowing that taskmaster whip to be idle. Her next major goal is to reach 1,000,000 words between the two series, LAC and Laura’s. So, I put up one of those counters in the menu over yonder. For those of you without mental calculators… At this very moment, she’s got 61,235 words to go. That’s certainly a ways off, and she will not be moving at a NaNoWriMo pace, but it is damn close. Two LACs or a Laura book or… We shall see.

Maybe we should start a pool. Whoever guesses the date she hits a million wins … um… No, Jesus, not Bimbo Babe!

Drum roll, please!

This author has completed LAC 14 and will now move on to its edit. That’s a pretty cool thing about the fictional world: You can go back and edit the days that didn’t come off just right. But even then, the most you get is a better verb or an extra comma. Okay, maybe it’s not as cool a thing as I thought. The things that suck here still suck here. Damn authors! Okay, and damn readers who don’t want to read happy crap all the time.

Anyway, the book will hopefully be ready to go by month’s end or early April.

Oh, and did I tell you that one of us—can’t remember who exactly—got another story going in her head? Yep, for some strange reason there will be LAC 14.5 … not a regular weekend but an important part of it all nonetheless. She’s not sure if it will amount to a full book or not, and we are under direct orders to stop feeding it to her until this one is done. She’s almost as bossy as a project manager.