I’ve been working on the…

I've been working on the YA novel, just finished writing the first sex scene. *Really* not sure how explicit to be in this; on the one hand, it's YA, with 16-year-old protagonists. On the other hand, one of the crisis points of the novel is about sex -- it's a critical part of the plot, and too important to gloss over. I waffled for a while, then went with somewhat explicit but not too much (about on the level of Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage). I'm mostly just glad I got through it, since I figure I can always adjust it as an editor recommends later, to more or less explicit, as seems appropriate.

It's really pleasant to be working on this book again. I hadn't actually realized I'd gotten as far as I had last time. I know what happens now for the next several chapters, so if all goes well, I'm hoping I can just keep going and get the words down. I have a fond fantasy of actually writing this full-time for the next few months and finishing a first draft by May. I know that sounds mad, but it's only about 50,000 words, and I write about a 1000 words/hr, so actual writing time is really only a week of working full-time. Of course, there's way more time that goes into this kind of thing -- I probably need a minimum of half an hour thinking for every hour I spend actually writing. And probably three hours of goofing off for every hour of writing too. But that *still* would let me finish by May, if I didn't get stuck and didn't get caught up in anything else.

Whenever I actually calculate this stuff, I feel guilty that I'm not writing novels all the damn time.