Although I don’t often comment on them, I really love the novel-progress updates that I get over at San’s and Cherie Priest’s blogs. Monkey see, monkey do:

The Sacred Mute is churning along nicely. My progress is not as quick or as consistent as I would like, but it’s greater than zero, which is the important thing. This is what it looks like:

24750 / 80000 words. 31% done!

Metafictional progress: Reworked the first six chapters to include the new Plucky Heroine. Kept the original protag as a minor character, then decided he should just die. Retroactively killed him. Fixed some niggling technical problems that made it hard for me to build my manuscript. (I am a geek: I write my novel in LaTeX using Vim.)

Fictional progress: Brought the Plucky Heroine into a (literally) smoke-filled room to talk to powerful people. Introduced her to a man with one of his eyes plucked out. Barbarian Warlord got into a fight with his wife. The Heroine’s city fortified itself, but the Barbarian Warlord proved to be smarter than he looks and found another way.

Tender Morsel of the Time Period:

The furs shifted a little and the light fell on the acã’s face. He was a man of tremendous age. His hair was thinned to white, airy wisps that clung to the fringes of his scalp. Creased jowls hung over his jaws, and his lip drooped, letting a strand of spittle dribble out. His brows were heavy and drooped over her eyes. Reze couldn’t tell if he looked at her, or if he saw at all.