Duh *smacks forehead*

The last two chapters of Love Runes have been giving me fits. Part of
it is what I call the downhill slide. I can see the end, I'm galloping
towards it at top speed, butsometimes I'm going so fast that instead of
taking the individual steps, I gloss over things. Anyone who has ever
walked down the steep slope of a sand dune or a mountainside knows what
it's like when suddenly you slip downhill a couple feet. Sure, you
moved faster, but you lost your sense of balance. Realizing that I was
in that precariousposition, I went back and forced myself to slow down and do it step by step.

The other problem I had was my Duh! moment. It would seem like a no brainier
that you have to show the bad guy getting an ass kicking for a
satisfying conclusion, but someone that huge obvious point escaped me
as I wondered why my last few chaptersdidn't work. Some things can
happen off-stage in a novel. The big confrontation isn't one of them.
Duh! In my defense though, I'd like to point out that there are two big
confrontations at the end of this story, and the one that I felt was
more important eclipsed the other one. Now that I have both, everything
else fell into place and I'm happy with the way it worked out. I'm a
little late with this, but I couldn't have turned it in the way it
stood.

Oh - and another little piece of satisfaction - I
estimated that this story would come in at 70,000 words. Final count is
69,875.