I backed up and smoothed out a couple of chapters near the end, then moved on through and got the next-to-last one nearly sketched out (d*mn those pesky transitions, some of which I skipped or left really ugly and ragged, like my dog wrote them). Got some stuff down for the very last chapter, which is a tying-it-all-up chapter, a "...and here's what happened to everybody afterwards" chapter. I have never done that before, and I think I'm bleeding into books two and three (this is the first book of a projected series). No, I know I'm bleeding into books two and three. But I'll leave it for now. I feel okay about what I have, but I know that's because I haven't gone back and reread it. Nevertheless, I'm gonna take "feeling okay" and run with it, because it's rare and must be appreciated while it lasts.

Here when I say "transitions" I'm not talking about between scenes, but very small transitions where I'm hooking together the bits I have, that I know I need. I have conversations or actions or thoughts or descriptions that I've been shifting all over the place, and now I'm putting them together into one scene, and they must read smoothly from one to the next to the next, as if I actually knew what I was doing all along. Smoke and mirrors.