I’ve just passed the 100,000 word mark on The Path of Duty and I’m in the home stretch for the first draft.  If I keep with it, I’ll be done by Thursday, just in time to enjoy the Easter holidays without feeling the need to write.  It’s been a long slog, and I’ve spent every weekend since just after New Year’s writing.  I don’t think I spent that many hours on my second job when I was still active in the Army Reserve – at least that was only one or two weekends a month and one night a week, not every weekend and every evening.  Mrs Thomson did warn me, when I hung up the uniform, that I’d find something else to occupy my spare time, since my character quirks do abhor a vacuum.  I just didn’t imagine it would take over my life quite as thoroughly.  I can’t say I’m wasting my time off from my day job, that’s for sure, although I have a hard time imagining that I can keep this pace going until I retire from my day job in three years and can devote those eight hours a day I give my employer, to my writing.  I suppose that when the good weather is here, the backwoods trails will be calling me, and my weekend writing will drop accordingly.  After a nice long summer Sunday’s hike through the hills, I’m really not good for anything else for the rest of the day.

Speaking of milestones, Mrs Thomson was commenting on how fast time flies as she pointed at a picture on the wall above my computer this morning.  It shows me and a few of my colleagues at a military event, back in 2008.  I would retire from the Army three short years later.  While it doesn’t make me feel old, it does remind me that tempus fugit – time flies.  And time has surely flown over the last few weeks.  I can recall celebrating the 40,000 word mark on the second Dunmoore, when it didn’t even have a working title, early last month, and now the finish line is in sight.  I think I’ll leave it where it stands for today and enjoy a few hours off before supper.  Perhaps a nice glass of red wine as a reward would be appropriate.  The final battle is brewing, the enemy is in sight, and Siobhan Dunmoore is finalizing her plan to deal with him, so she can get her crew and her ship home.