update 112.

july 15th-21st.

we reached 500k total words woooo!!! what a crazy milestone. i remember when i thought this book would be no longer than 300k and i'd be done by the end of 2022... oh what a naive little thing i was.

but i'm happy to say that progress is moving much smoother than last week. i'll admit, i had very little faith that i'd be able to write at all, but i'm glad to have been proven wrong. i will say, however, that this doesn't necessarily mean i'm super confident in the scene i'm writing, but at the very least, i have a better grasp on it than i did last week.

strangely enough, when it comes to worries, i feel like the way i'm writing [A] and N is out of character. i know that i created them and anything i write will technically be canon, but (and this may be controversial) i do think that in some instances, authors can misunderstand their characters. a large part of this comes from the fact that one, i haven't written [A] and N in the main story for a while now, and two, i'm not used to writing happy scenes anymore. that sounds so depressing, but i swear it's true. on top of that, [A] and N are my two least angsty characters, so doing a 180° flip from Blane, K and Rylan is really throwing me for a loop.

best case scenario, i get over my problems this week and by my next update, it'll all be in the past. worst case scenario, i'll continue as is and fix it all up in edits when i finish the first draft of the chapter. in any case, i think it'll work itself out. i have a tendency to overthink things, so maybe they're not even as ooc as i think—maybe they're not even at all.

as i write [A] and N's scene, i'm also chipping away at Blane's. working on two scenes at once will, hopefully, speed along the process and help me out of a slump when i get stuck in one branch. because of this, i truly think we're nearing the end of the chapter. not in terms of writing (i still have thousands to go i fear), but content-wise, i can see the light at the end of the tunnel. i know exactly what scenes and choices i need to write to make it to the finish line.

that said, i'm starting to get a better estimate on when i'll be able to get this done, but i'll keep it to myself for one more week and then share it with you in the next update. not because i want to keep you on your toes (i feel like i've done that long enough now), but just to make sure my prediction is right.

anyway, that's all from me! i hope you're all taking care of yourselves <3

stats.

• chapter total: 31,230 words (+4189)

• game total: ~503,230 words

sneak peek.

[A] pokes my cheek. "Hey, what did I just say?"