Boogie with a suitcase

Still sick. Three weeks now.

But still pushing, and put 1,500 words in the can today. I got a little slowed down with the first meeting with Lon Davis, as it took three tries to get where I was going with his character and what plot bites I was going to drop in that first scene, and what I wanted to save in reserve.

And I still need to go back and refactor Dylan a little. He has to be much more shy during the work scenes, and sillier in the off-work scenes. I need to keep taking lectures away from everyone, and I also want to firmly establish that he is in no way a love interest.

Yeah, so much for the love triangle.

But the first John Freeman scene went great. (I even nailed down his favorite guitar, which is a 1960s Greco in green).

The biggest problem I have at the moment, in fact, is that I've decompressed too well. I'm over 8K for Part II already and even though I'm moving the second body drop, I don't know if I have time for another clue before Penny has to go walk out into the desert -- and meet Jackson and Sanchez.

(Another side effect of the decompression is Penny has already managed to talk more about her family than she has in any other single book of the series. I know; I've been saving the bit about the Hofner Bass for two or three books now, but I really didn't expect to get to a very interesting bit about her big sister. Not until at least the Vikings book. Assuming I do that story.)

(Oh, and came up with another plot for the Adventures of Athena Fox idea. A golden plate with Mayan astronomical observations necessary to "do something" about a loose asteroid or something. Said plate, unfortunately, held in the high-tech penthouse of an eccentric collector with far too many well-armed bodyguards...)

So I'm now at 20K for the book and I might have it half-written before the cover creator I'm trying out even gets back to me (100 Covers is having a summer rush. Well, they shouldn't have given away those 50% off codes).

That's assuming I keep putting off Egtved, maybe forever. Because otherwise I'll have to stop and dive into the bronze age for a week or two.