I talked to a bunch of people that came to Thanksgiving dinner and got some great ideas for how to end it. I can include a sheriff station raid and a farm raid. Plus now there's going to be a hibernating bear and a shotgun. Pretty exciting!

This week has been super busy because a friend is coming to visit and she's bringing some of her friends, so the book has to wait another week.

I made some notes about how my ending should flow and which scenes I need to tweak. I told [my husband] about the scene with Courtney and he said it was way too dark. He said the mom would completely lose all his sympathy if she did that. I personally don't lose sympathy for her, but I'm not sure what readers will think. The whole scene is pretty pivotal to the rest of the story, so I'm keeping it.

It was one of those scenes that I knew far in advance was going to happen, and I'd given it a lot of thought as I knew it was approaching. I write in order, and so on the day I got to that scene I made sure I was going to have some uninterrupted time and then I started. It was the first time (and only time so far) that I'd cried when writing a scene. I think I felt more about it than I managed to convey, but as a mom I can put myself in Courtney's shoes and feel a little bit of her pain at the impossible decision she makes.