finally wrote the bar opening. And yeah, it’s happening at 73+k words into the story. That’s going to need to happen sooner. Moving it up will happen in the revisions. But that’s okay. Writing progress is writing progress. The first draft has to exist before you can polish it.
Tension Time
One reason to move this forward in the book is because it represents an inflection point in the tension. Until the bar is open, our protagonist isn’t really emotionally committed. She can take the financial hit and walk. Now, she’s in. And the timer starts counting. She has a limited financial runway to make. the. bar. work.
It’s also the point at which opposition can really start to hurt her. That’s going to start ratcheting up, too.
It shouldn’t be too hard to condense the parts leading up to this. The first 20-30k words are where I was really getting up to speed. There’s a lot of what I am calling ‘ticky-tack’ writing in there. Scenes where every little action gets described. That’s just not necessary and the first revisions will slash that part to the bone. Of course, that means I need more written after the bar opening. It looks like we’re going to zoom past 100k words and cut back down. And that’s okay.
Here are today’s stats:
Date 3/27/2026
Words (Draft) 1515
Words (Elsewhere) 0
Words (Total) 1515
Characters (Draft) 8443
Characters (Elsewhere) 0
Characters (Total) 8443
Session Target 1843
And the context-free quote:
“I’m okay now. Ask me again in April.” Wendy shifted in her seat. “Rae-Lynn, I can’t have you working November to March.”
Rae-Lynn nodded. “I take off most of that time anyway. I do roadie work for bands. Got a lead on tracking bail jumpers in Oklahoma this December. Just waiting for some, uh,” she shot Patricia a look, “local licensing permissions to come through.”
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