I finished the design work for EMPOWERMENT today, despite having a nasty cold which I appear to have brought back with me from Ethiopia last week. I'm pleased with the design, but also a bit concerned -- EMPOWERMENT will be written in first person, and will focus heavily on the internal debate going on inside the protagonist. My other novels have focused much more on external action, and pulling off this "mental thriller" may be a little more difficult.
I also note that when writing the scene sequence, I came up with a scant 83,000 words for the length of the novel. This is a little skimpy compared to my other works, where I've been aiming for 90-100K. While the story needs to be the right length to tell the tale, and shorter may be better in this case, I'll have to resist the urge during the writing to add fluff to build out the length.
Now back to my other ongoing task -- editing the first draft of LESSONS LEARNED THE HARD WAY. This will undoubtedly be a tedious task, and I've been avoiding it a bit, but now it is front and center -- the only thing currently on my plate. So the time for putting it off is over. Onward and upward!
