This morning, I woke up to the thought that I had only 534 words to go to reach 90,000 words on the draft of my novel-in-progress. It was a glorious feeling. By noon, during my daily writing session at one of my favorite local library branches, I blew right past that number, and wrote more like 1,000, which is a good number for me.

When the book’s done, sometime next year, it’ll be the third in my Sing & Shout series of historical thrillers for young adults, following Back in the USSR and Strawb...