Works in Progress: Update #4: The “Everything’s Mapped Out” Update

Hi there. It’s been a minute since our last update. Several minutes. Since Thanksgiving, in fact. So I thought I’d take a bit to give everyone a peak behind the curtain, so to speak, and see where we’re at with all of our favorite ambiguous and vague writing projects. 

To put it briefly, the start of 2026 has not been too kind to my overall mental state. National and global events have taken a toll, sure, but privately there have been a few events that have bludgeoned my dumb little head like a ton of emotionally charged bricks. 

For one, I lost my godfather earlier this month after a brief but intense bout with cancer. He tied, taking the cancer with him in the heroic way that people fighting cancer do. Anyone who has ever died of cancer technically didn’t “lose their battle,” cause the cancer goes with them - that’s a tie. Norm McDonald taught me that.

Add on that we cannot go one day without an aneurysm inducing headline and the writing environment is a bit tainted as of late. It doesn’t help that I spent the entire holiday time on a little break that has proven hard to kickstart out of. 

But there is progress, yes. The work will continue. Here’s where we stand.

G.J. Gets an Epilogue

A few months ago, my soft sci-fi novel skewed at young adults got an epilogue. It had been bouncing around my head for a few days, so I officially jumped ahead and penned it so I could focus on the scenes I was writing. 

This, folks, is groundbreaking news for little ole me, because now I know where we’re heading. I mean, I always sort of knew and have known as outlined in the plot of the novel, but now I know for sure that’s where we’ll end up because it’s written down. Now all I have to do is ensure we get there and we’re golden. 

I think I’ve talked about it before, but I typically don’t outline my stories, at least not in any physical sense. Sure, my head is constantly swirling the same scant scenes and facts for the next bit or the bit after that, but I find that the writing helps solidify where the plot goes more than trying to see it all beforehand. 

This is kind of the first time I’ve been able to write with a destination in mind, and it’s refreshing. I have a lot to get through, but at least I know where I’ll leave you, would-be-reader, when it’s all said and done. 

There’s an end in sight and I know what it looks like, so it’ll be easier to know when I’ve arrived. That being said, we’re looking through a telescope or something, cause we have a long ways to go.

Return of Our Graph

I’ll spare you and only show one graph this time around, since there’s only progress on one project. I did jot down the beginning of a new thing on an airplane around Thanksgiving, but it’ll be sitting on the backburner until I’m stuck again. 

Here’s where we stand with G.J.:

I guess the next graph should go past 60,000…

A total of 69627 words and Part 3 is nearly half-way done. Our baby tiny Epilogue weighs just under 800 words, and that’s good. It doesn’t need to be any longer than that. 

I needed to see this, in a way, because to be honest I’ve been getting a bit panicky with how Part 3 is going. At times it feels as though I need to speed up the pacing of it, and I probably will in a revision, but seeing that there’s roughly 13,000 or so words left to put it on par with the other two parts feels good in a way. I’m not shortchanging the ending. 

To rip the curtain off the rod, I’m about to approach the midpoint of Part 3 that will accelerate us toward the end, I hope, and this little spotcheck is serving the purpose of letting me see visually what can be so hard to see in the Google Doc file. 

I’ve heard of writers who print out their work so they can physically see the shape of their story and I guess this is my numbers-based, environment-friendly version of doing that. So, that’s kind of neat.

So we’re on our way to the home stretch. I have most of what will happen next plotted out in my head and all that remains is putting fingers to keys to ink it down, as it were.

What Now?

Well, I guess I need to get to work and finish the first draft of this novel so I can start rewriting it to make it seem like it was good from the get go. Disgraced writer and alleged sex-pest Neil Gaiman once said in response to how to write a novel, and I paraphrase, “First, write down everything that happens in the novel. Then, rewrite to make it seem like you knew what you were doing all along.” If that’s not right, I’m not about to double check the words of an alleged sex-pest, so…

But that’s the plan - write down everything that happens in the story, then rewrite it so it seems like I knew what I was doing. 

As to what happens after that? Who knows, but this space will return to a land of Word Reviews, Airplane Thoughts, and the odd article about a video game I’m currently playing. So, a return to form with a dash of book updates every now and then. 

All the while working on my mental state. Hopefully for the better. 

Oh and find a better way to end my articles.

Or something.