Bronte Follower: Blog

I've just uploaded Chapter 242 and it will post on March 22.

As for the future, working in the field in my field is frequently satisfying, nearly as frequently exhausting, and occasionally surprising. My situation since mid-February fits the first and last to a tee, and the second somewhat. Now, I've gotten a reprieve. I thought I'd be going back to that project and have another exhausting month or so, but the boss just yesterday switched me to a different project and someone else will have to earn a pile of OT. I'll probably have a lot of free time when I head back into the field mid-week next week, so I should be able to find plenty of writing time to get ahead again on _Beth_.

On a final note, the end of Beth approaches. I haven't quite figured out which will be the last date in Beth's diary, but it will be in late August 2018, after the state tournament. Of course, with postings only every fourth day, the last chapter won't post until well after northern-hemisphere fall 2024 or later. I'm still pondering a follow-on sequel that would probably combine _Beth_ and _A Tall Young Girl_ in a different format. However, I still haven't come up with a solid ending of that story, and won't begin writing it if I don't come up with one. We'll see.

Thanks, readers, for sticking with my incredibly long "little story."

I've uploaded Chapter 241 (finally) and have gotten a good start on Chapter 242. Fieldwork on the recent project was extensive and allowed me little time to myself other than eating and sleeping. While I've gotten a couple of days off, I'll be returning to that project for the next seven to ten days, during which I'll probably have little writing time. I should be able to get Chapter 242 uploaded soon, hopefully to post four days from now. When I get more writing time is up in the air. I'll try to keep readers apprised.

Sorry, readers, but work threw me a curveball recently, and one that has precluded me from nearly anything that I could consider free time. The sudden remote task I'm on is coming to an end, so hope to get back to writing very soon.

During late Dec and throughout Jan, writing was a breeze and I was nearly astonished at how much I got written and how far ahead I got. At one point in January, I was six chapters ahead in _Beth_ and single chapters ahead in both _A Tall, Young Girl_ and _It's My Party_.

Then February brought the doldrums, and it took me more than half the month to write Chapter 236, getting it done and uploaded only a half-day before it was posted on schedule. Fortunately, I'm nearly 6000 words into Chapter 237 which I expect to be 9000-10,000 words, and should have the first draft finished, edited, copy-edited, and uploaded tomorrow evening. I hope.

As some readers noted, I had some problems with 236, and some of those were due to buying a brand new laptop that likes to frequently move the cursor on its own, often to a place I can't find it. This causes much frustration when it inserts stuff elsewhere than I had intended for the currently active sentence and/or deletes stuff elsewhere because I was trying to delete stuff in the active sentence and/or puts the cursor into highlight mode wherever the cursor went. I've not been able to figure out how I'm causing this if I am, but I'm not doing anything different than I've done on all previous laptops (and they are legion). It's frustrating.

Official rant now complete.

Finally, I provide a heads-up about March. There's a reasonably good chance that I'll be traveling for work for some part of March. If I do, the project will be intensive and could very well cause a reduction -- perhaps a great reduction -- in writing time. However, the client is not yet sure it's going to pull the trigger. Typical. They'll want us there yesterday.

I have six chapters of three stories uploaded and scheduled this month with one of each to post over the next five days. Four of those chapters will post to Beth (chapters 227-230 on the 15th, 19th, 23rd, and 27th, respectively). Chapter 17 of A Tall Young Girl will post on the 13th and Chapter 2 of It's My Party will post on the 17th. And, no, Lesley Gore has nothing to do with that third story.