Gotta stop for the day

Today was my flex day and Lanternfish was my goal. I wound up waking early, even though that wasn’t my intention. After I tended the dogs, I read back through my previous chapter, then let her rip.

Last time, I wrote right up to the cusp of Lanternfish’s biggest battle. Today it was time for that battle. A little bittersweet for me because it’s also Lanternfish’s final battle. I’ve spent a lot of years with this fictional ship.

Don’t worry, it isn’t all devastation and she has a different role, but the main characters do too. To grow, sometimes you have to give some things up.

There were deaths among the named crew members. This is war after all, and some of that needs to happen to keep things realistic.

There was a conflict between a Prelonian officer and Sergeant Schuster about rank. James settled that with a promotion that made Schuster into a captain. Since he is a marine, the rank isn’t as high as a naval captain. Quite different actually.

Schuster had a big night with his own POV adventure to go along with it. Banquo went with him and deployed the poison of Big Boogah which is a nice tie back to the original story.

Mule and Yoshiko also had a long night, but they were bailed out by Mule’s knife, also known as the black spot. Now they have the obligation to find and recover it. A nice tie to the second story.

Mal saved the day with one of his magical creations, but I need to go back and make that more prominent. Maybe add some results readers can appreciate.

Root monsters were involved, but I only focused on them in the aftermath. One named Fishbone is walking around with a fifty-caliber hole through his chest and the others think it’s hilarious.

I stopped with James in a state of exhaustion. Everything changed in the scope of one night. He has dead and wounded, he lost his ship. And he doesn’t know if it made any difference at all.

This is the perfect place to cut it off for the day. My next day will be a reflection and assessment section.

The events of this battle will lead directly to problems for the Palumbos, and I need to dream up how they will handle the two or three things I need them to accomplish.

Serang is at the point of her big event, but that seems like something I won’t reach this weekend.

All told it came to 4200 words. That’s amazing by my standards, but it has to do with getting out of that middle slog. This book is at 45,000 now. I hoped for about 50K at the midpoint so I’m a little shy. Since this is fantasy, I’d like to break 100K with the finished product.

When I write that fast, the results are usually weak. I like what I have, but I’m sure it’s full of word echoes and soft descriptions that I’ll have to address later.

Right now, I’m pleased with the results. I have a couple of guest spots to schedule, so the timing for that is perfect.