I wrote the last chapter of The Ghost Smuggler yesterday.

It was a lot shorter than I’d expected but it ties nicely with the opening chapter and although the actual content is quite different to what I’d originally planned the overall tone is the same. I like it.

Of course, the book isn’t actually finished yet. I finished off an earlier chapter this morning and then, as I mentioned yesterday, I’ve got two chapters to replace completely. I think there’s a new chapter to add as well. Once I’ve written those, then the first draft will be done. I fully expect that to happen this week.

I don’t normally skip around like this but I’ve been using my Chromebook for writing a lot and because it’s not really practical to have the whole manuscript on Google Docs, it’s a bit harder to jump back and rewrite/fix the earlier sections of the book. Instead, I left them as is until I’d finished off the rest of the book and knew exactly what I needed to do with them.

I also started a new story yesterday. I’m not even remotely ready to start writing it properly but I’m excited about the idea and what I’m hoping to do with it once it’s complete. I had a pretty clear picture of what the opening paragraph should be and it sets the scene and tone nicely so I wanted to get it done before I forgot it. It will now sit on my drive until I get round to outlining the full story.

[THE END (Sort of) by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 5th August 2013]