For those of you who’ve been following along as I write Unnamed Joanna #22, I just now hit a word-count total of 57,164 words. That means I’m at 61.17% of a 95,000-word book, and I’m officially on the banana peel. In other words, it should be all downhill from here.

Of course, that 60% number is entirely arbitrary, right along with getting 10,000 steps—which I’m still doing, by the way—but it’s a way of keeping score; a way of knowing that I’m making forward progress. The truth is, I find that, as a general rule, writing the last third of a book is fundamentally easier than writing the first two thirds of the book. That occurs primarily because by then I usually know where the story is going.

But here’s another bit of the book publishing business that you may find surprising. The whole while I’ve been writing this book, I’ve been waiting for the right title to pop into my mind. It hasn’t exactly popped. It’s been more or less sneaking in around the edges of my mind. Or is it corners instead of edges? No idea.

At any rate, I finally hit on what I believe to be the right title. So yesterday I sent my suggested name to my editor. Today I received her reply. It turns out, the person who has the final word on titles is currently out of town—and so are the marketing people who also get to weigh on the topic. As far as getting approval on title is concerned, I’ll have to take an old cold tater and wait—which is exactly what Evie would say.

But the truth is, I’m enjoying writing this book. It’s been like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. All I can say is, I hope my readers enjoy it, too.

But that’s why today’s blog is short but brief—which is also something Evie would say. I need to get back to writing STILL Unnamed Joanna # 22.