3 December 2010 This week has gone by slowly. Or rather, the first three days of December. I'm presently at 61,727 words, which is not as fast as I had planned. I'd hoped to be at 66,000+ by now. What's causing the delay? I could blame my newly minted cold, which is sapping my energy. I could blame a busy week. Or, I can blame Mondennio, the protagonist.

I'll blame him. It's good to blame somebody else, right? It's never my fault. Sure, I could have gotten up early enough if only I'd gone to bed early enough. Mondennio approached his second disaster over the past three days. I looped back to write a key scene. Then, he finally got disastered—really disastered. Once I wrote it, I was hoping to go straight into his reaction.

I couldn't. I sat there for an hour and wrote only 200 words. It wasn't until my commute that it really hit me why. Mondennio was beyond shocked. I couldn't describe his utter lack of ability to think, because he couldn't think. Characters aren't supposed to mess with you like that, right?

More importantly, the kid just does not know when to stop digging. Know what I mean? When you're at the bottom of a hole, you're supposed to stop digging. He did not stop. I had to seriously stop writing to figure out how it was possible for him to be saved. He's turned all self-destructive on me, which makes sense for a guy his age. But, come on! Give me something to work with!