Under the Skin is finished, all 11o,823 words of it as of midnight my time and ready ( after a quick tidying up) to be sent to my editor sometime tomorrow.
Call me happy! Call me relieved!
I wrote 2, 457 words today (not counting this blog post.) I'm off to have a cider, take a shower, and fall into bed.
Many thanks for the cheering which was in my head all day long!
As of Thursday night, the main story -- the present day story about Elizabeth and her sister was completed. Huzzah!
But I still have to round off that other story -- the one about the DeVine Sisters back in 1887. One and one-half concluding episodes remain to be told, as of Friday night. And I MUST email the lot to Herself, my long-suffering editor by Monday morning.
I know what's going to happen in this story (always a plus). But sometimes the characters take so very long to get to the action.
Look who's just walked into Under the Skin, my work in progress! It's Nellie Bly, investigative girl reporter herself.
I had decided to have the DeVine sisters, the twin mediums in my 1887 subplot, be the object of an investigative reporter's interest and I thought I'd read up on Nellie Bly for ideas.
What I found was that Nellie herself was available. In May of 1887 she was probably between jobs. She had left the Pittsburgh Dispatch, disgusted with having been returned to the theater and art beat after her exciting six months in Mexico, during which she reported on the life and customs of the people and ran afoul of the current dictatorship after daring to be critical of it.
Her next recorded stop would be New York, where she would gain fame as an undercover reporter for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. Her 10 Days in a Mad-House did a great deal to expose the brutal conditions of the asylums of the time and she would go on to challenge Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days by making the trip in in 72.
But what if, between leaving Pittsburgh and going to New York, Nellie decided to take a kind of working holiday by visiting the Mountain Park Hotel and participating on a seance held by the famous spiritualist sisters, Theodora and Dorothea DeVine?
Around 7 AM -- the beginning of a long day with Miss Birdie
Six-ish in the evening -- a dinner break (there was a lunch break too, never fear)
A little after midnight (with shaky hand and blurry eyes). All the main characters are assembled for the climactic scene -- which will have to wait till tomorrow. Or rather, today.
