I hit page 180 today of the final draft of A Time and a Place.  Yes, I should be further along than that but Christmas came along and with it the usual complement of gluttony and sloth.  Holidays never fail to blow ginormous holes in my writing schedule, holes that make the one in the ozone layer look like a mere pockmark on Brad Pitt’s forehead.

The novel is divided up into four parts, and page 180 marks the end of part two.  Poor Barnabus J. Wildebear isn’t faring so well.  Our hapless hero will require much of parts three and four to get his act together and save his nephew — if he can.  Fortunately for both of us, parts three and four will be slighter shorter than parts one and two. 

Those of you less mathmatically challenged than the artsy writing this will have discerned that I’m officially well past the half way point in this, the final draft of A Time and A Place.  I was tempted to ask for some dedicated readers at this point so that they could completely discourage me with their devastating criticism of what (let’s face it) is more than likely a pile of complete rubbish, absolute rot, a waste of both my time and theirs, but I chickened out.  Maybe later…

…once the manuscript has been languishing in the bottom of a trunk for seventeen or so years, after having been rejected by every reputable and disreputable publisher on seven or eight continents, and shortly before my recovery from a hellish descent into alcoholism (marked by a disturbing obsession with small gibbon monkeys).