I finished the renders and layout for the Hallowe'en story today.

Now all I have to do is write the eleven pages of dialogue I haven't done yet (which is half the story). But it's still victory, because the thing is, I started my computer this morning and it showed me September 20 in big font, and I had a moment of panic, so I've dealt with that.

Remember, the renders are the slow part. One page a day is about par and it's a bad par. I get very unhappy with that par, given that my stories are often running close to thirty pages and I'm on a schedule this year of one a month. Next year I'll get off that schedule and the stories can take as long as they fucking need to. It's making me tense, and right now I don't need anything else making me tense, what with my house being torn to pieces around me and workmen forcing me to get up two hours too early each day just so I can be showered and dressed when they get here at the crack of fucking dawn.

The dialogue, on the other hand, is comparatively fast. I might be able to write all eleven of those pages in a day -- if my brain is in the right place. Because, unfortunately, writing the dialogue does take concentration and focus, as opposed to the renders. But still. The goal was not "get the hard part over with," the goal was "get the time-consuming part over with." And now I have. So the rest of the process of making this story should be smooth sailing, right?

The title refers to the old joke about the light at the end of the tunnel.