I alluded in a few places last week to the fact that a substantial piece of writing was rather rapidly coming together, and today I officially set Chapter 7 of my current book project aside as “done enough” for the time being – so, more polished than a raw first draft, but probably pretty different from what it’ll look like in the finished manuscript. I had a fortnight or so of panic back in October or thereabouts when I was convinced I’d have to read half a library to write it and wouldn’t get it done until well into the new year, but managed to emerge from that fairly quickly (though not before buying a few books that it turns out I probably won’t read) and have gotten it done a week or so ahead of my original schedule. So yay. For the rest of December, I won’t do much on this project apart from some reading (though I’ll be doubling up on radio work for the next week and a bit, to give myself some proper time off later in the month). Then in the new year, I’ll plunge into Chapter 8. Which I’m expecting to be the last one, though if it were to end up turning into two, that certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Plus maybe a short epilogue sort of thing. Or maybe not, we’ll see. And I didn’t really know what book I was writing way back when I took my first stab at an Introduction, so is it really a full first draft until I have another go at that? Anyway, at some point probably before the middle of 2021 and most definitely before the end, I will have a full (though not yet at all coherent) manuscript. Which is a long way from being done in any real sense, but still an exciting thing to be close enough to see glinting off in the misty distance. Onwards!