I'm in the last leg of BLOOD PROMISE, at page 266, and the pressure is mounting. To deliver a mind-blowing climax, to wrap up this novel that I've been working on since last year, to pound out the complete first draft by the end of this month.

This has to be perfect. But it isn't. It's far from perfect. It's messy and heavy-handed and there are some parts that are evidently not well thought-out. I know it's just the first draft and everyone expects the first draft to pretty much suck, but UGH it's frustrating. Some days, the scenes play out vividly in your head and your fingers struggle to keep up with your thoughts; and some days, NOTHING. Every attempt at the next sentence feels hackneyed and contrived.

I'm four pages (about 1,000 words) behind schedule today, and I don't think I can pound them out by bedtime.

On a more positive note, I had a pretty surreal dream last night. About a girl begging a boy not to kill her. And the boy doesn't, because he loves her despite the fact that they're from warring factions, and extracts all her memories instead, storing them in a tree of moons.

There was a whole other mess of voices and consequences, and it ended up with a girl crying pretty hard. I was watching her cry, until I became the girl crying. I cried so hard in my dream that I woke myself up.

I lay in bed for a while more, struggling to recapture my dream, and came up with a rough plot for SHINY NEW NOVEL.

Gotta love REM sleep. They're the best breeding ground for bizarre random ideas for writing.