Reason for stopping: New policy:
(In an effort to save my sanity, my wrists, my creativity, my friendships, and earn back the love of my dogs, I'm trying to limit my fiction writing to two thousand words a day maximum, closer to 1000 words, unless I am really on a tear on something hot.
I tend to be a little OCD. This will not do, long term, as a career-building attitude. I will ruin myself. And given that I have almost 60K of the damned thing written, and expect it to run another 140K, I think I am much better off adopting a marathon runner philosophy on this one.
To wit: The book will still be there tomorrow, and if anything it will be better for more stewing time. And if I write 1000 words a day, it will still be done in four months, allowing for occasional good days and bad days.
Which gets me in nicely on my vow to complete two first drafts this year.)
As a side result of our new policy of writerly sanity, I've finished Alan Bray's Homosexuality In Renaissance England and am halfway through A Dead Man in Deptford, Anthony Burgess' novel about Kit. (I'm far enough into The Stratford Man that I can afford to look at other fiction on the topic now without worrying it will affect my thought process.
I am pleased to note that my book is utterly nothing like Burgess' and my Kit isn't much like his either--although they're both identifiably Kit. Through the magic of fiction, I've managed to explore a completely different angle on the man. Whoot!
Still. Good book.