Praise Anubis, Osiris, and Amun-Ra! After four years, I have finally reached this point!
So, if you’re unaware, let me explain. Back in 2022, after I had moved into my current home and needed a project to work on, I started a mummy novel tentatively called Crawler. The plot followed a mummy on a rampage in a small Ohio town. I got about eight chapters into what was then thirty before I had to put the novel on the back burner and work on something else. I thought, at most, I would be leaving Crawler alone for a couple of weeks. Maybe a few months.
It was four years. Yeah, it was four years. I have no excuses. I just kept finding other things to work on, and I kept meaning to get back to it, but I just never did.
Until this year, that is. When I finally decided I would get back to the novel and finish it. And then in July, right around the time I started the novel four years ago, I started working on it again. I went over the chapters I originally wrote, updating them as I went. And then, after those were edited, I started on new material. New chapters. Some I inserted into the narrative on the spur of the moment, thus expanding the story from thirty to thirty-four chapters.
And despite how crazy my life gets, and several nights where I had to be a responsible adult and take care of things at home rather than write, and God knows what else, I have been making steady progress. And as of last night, I have finished seventeen chapters. Meaning, unless I add more chapters on the spur of the moment, I am officially halfway through Crawler.
Honestly, I am ecstatic about this. There were times when I thought this book would languish, unfinished, for years and years. And when I finally got back to it, and there were nights where I couldn’t work on it for one reason or another, I wondered what the hell I was doing. But, maybe because I’m so damned stubborn, I persisted with it. And now, half the book is written, rather than just eight chapters.
And damn, it’s a lot of material, too! At the time I’m writing it, the page count (8.5″x11″, double-spaced, twelve-point font, Times New Roman) is 204, and the word count is 55,845. To say the least, this book is going to be a real doorstopper when it’s done. As long as Snake or Symphony for Walpurgis when it’s done (and those are some chunky books). I hope that doesn’t scare off potential publishers!
But that’s far in the future. In the meantime, I’m going to take a short break from Crawler. (Don’t worry, I don’t plan to let it grow into another years-long break.) And during that break, I’m going to work on some shorter stuff, including an essay that a friend of mine inspired me to write and which I hope to submit later this month. After that, assuming there’s nothing stopping me, I’ll get back to Crawler and hopefully finish it up.
I look forward to the day when I can make that announcement.
That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’m going to brew a cup of tea, read a little, and then hit the hay. Until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares.
