I came to the conclusion last week that this book, which has been a labor both of love and work while I update, cut and polish the plot, characters, technology-related plot changes and twists and anything else that with distance has given me more ability to dispassionately revise...needs more than a continuity draft to finish.

Now there's a compound, complex sentence for the agonizing decision I had to make, if I was going to get any rest and maintain some sanity!

There I was, bogged down in yet another chapter that required hours of work as I fine-tuned it and reflected back to previous chapters for additional tweaking, Here were the Holidays, coming up faster and faster. I had already flipped the calendar on my desk to add activities to November. No longer was my projected pub date the only item, and my page-count wasn't where it needed to be on this draft.

I realized late November wasn't going to happen. Yes, if I galloped along, without taking the needed time and energy, maybe I could finish, but it was looking increasingly doubtful.

I knew that insisting on keeping that goal would result in doing my readers a disservice and allowing myself to turn out a product that wasn't at the level I knew it could be.

New pub date is early 2018. Paula Johnson is updating my website to reflect that, and I'm posting the changes on Facebook. I'm shooting for mid-January as a new goal. I'll keep posting updates as I do this book the justice I feel it deserves.