Just a quick update here, since I’m about to head off to the Day Job:

The Book 5 Rough Draft is now complete!  At 439 pages (in the text file) — comparing it to Book 4’s rough, which was 447 pages, I’m pretty well on target.  I want to shrink it down shorter than Book 4 in the final draft, and I feel there’s plenty of space to trim — but I also have to add a few things, as I feel I’ve given short shrift to some story aspects that should have been more important.  We’ll see.

Anyway, I’ll be taking a long weekend from the book, but then jumping back in to start editing it.