26 is finished with, and I'm close to done with 27. I need to do a PTA newsletter and a critique so I won't make much progress tonight. But overall, things are moving along okay right now.

I'll be curious to see if readers see the end of 27 coming. I already was surprised to have a reader (non-buffista) not realize that a theft occurred at the end of chapter 7, which would just make the ending of the chapter kinda confusing (though, the beginning of chapter 8 clears things up). It's hard for me to gauge stuff since I always know what's going to happen. At a later point, I'll have to try to wrangle another reader or two and get some impressions of someone reading straight through without critiquing along the way. It'll be awhile to get it to that point though.

I managed to finish up 27 after the PTA newsletter. Onward to 28, but not tonight. I have the day off tomorrow, so I'm hoping to sneak in a good block of revision, though I do have that critique to handle.

Hey Gud, that whole thing reader might be me. I wanted to do better but life got in the way. I still want to be helpful, so why don`t we plan on me giving it a whole read when you`re done with this pass.

That sounds great Liese, thanks!

Ok, I need to write a fight/struggle scene between an armed assailant who's not that impressive otherwise, but, you know, gun, and his victim whose main physical activity is, like, a weekly exercise class or something. Neither one of them have to fight like they're on Buffy, but I have no clue how to write about things like that...it's okay, better even, if it's a little sloppy, but physicality is always hard for me to write about. Anything I should keep in mind?

No clue here, but who do you want to win? Or do you want a draw? Cause I'll bet whoever gives you advice can also give you pointers so the fight realistically ends with the results you want? (Actually I do know one thing from Karate years ago. Overwhelmingly the odds are person with gun wins, but it can come out the other way. And if the guy with the gun does not know what they are doing, I'll bet there are mistakes you can have them make that let the unarmed person win the fight.)

It depends on so many factors. There is the fact that people with guns often assume that pointing a gun will get them what they want, so they're not prepared for someone to fight back. A strategy for the unarmed person is to move in close and go for a knee.

I'd try to find some movie clips on You Tube or something where this happens and just watch them over and over again to help visualize how it could work. It may not be realistic, but it'll probably read well. Then try to highlight the emotions of the characters during the fight. Fear, anger, frustration, all that good stuff.

Ooof. 4,778 words written in about under 10 hours total. Someone remind me that one of these days, I should stop waiting until the last minute to write these things for Steampunk Tales. Now to wait for feedback from my awesome beta readers.

That's an impressive rate.

I have some corrections to do still with 28 and 29. My wife looked at 30 and didn't like it, so I redid some of it. Chapter 30 is getting pretty small so I expect I'll roll it into 29. The ending of 29 isn't all that spectacular, so folding in 30 will be good for it. The end of 30 is probably the best chapter ending in the book.