You guys have no IDEA how stressed I’ve been. The first half and last quarter of Witch Fall are done and I love it. The latter part of the middle doesn’t exist. And the bleeping thing is due out in October. I’ve been wracking my brain and struggling with it for months. Finally, I just decided to start with a character rewrite and hope for the best. And then I read this article. Here’s the short of it:

“The antagonist is the beating heart of the story. He/She/It creates the crisis and the crucible that forces our protagonist to become a hero. If we don’t know the endgame, we have no idea how to insert roadblocks, create misdirection, setbacks, or drama. So if you keep getting stuck? It might not be you are lazy or fearful (I wasn’t either). It might be your foundation (the antagonist/core story problem) either isn’t there or it’s weak and unable to support the bulk of 65-100,000 words.”
~Kristen Lamb

Light-freakin’-bulb! My problem is I have two villains with dual purposes, which makes a mess out of the middle and undermines the beginning and the end (because one villain appears at the beginning, the other at the end).

The two need to be collaborators! This changes everything. Why didn’t I see it before? It’s so simple and so perfect and I missed it!

But really, who cares, because now I can finish the bleeping thing, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll make my deadline. Pray my kids cooperate.

No really. Pray. It’s gonna take a miracle.