The Fracking War draft enters its fourth - and final - phase

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - By the end of next week, God willing and the scorpions leave me alone, I should be starting the fourth segment of The Fracking War.

The third segment has about five chapters left to write. There is some death and destruction, a love interest and a nasty, nasty twist that has the bad guys itching like someone put fiberglass powder in their jockstraps.

Hydrofracking-related explosion

For the record, that's not what happened. What happened is waaaaaay worse.

The hardest part about this book has been forcing myself to sit and bang out a chapter or two per day. Every three or four days I do planning for the next week, sketching out the chapters based on what has just happened.

What, I don't know what's happening in my own book?

No, frankly. The damned characters are running this show.

Plus there are so many distractions here. You would think that carving out three or four hours a day would be simple. It isn't.

Today we did a whale-watching tour during normal writing time. But it wasn't a total loss. I came up with a possible wild finish for the book while watching the male whales in hot pursuit of a female.

Humpback whales speed dating

I said it was a possible wild finish.

That's the update for today. Sunday is normally a day of rest but duty calls next week. Adm. Fox and I are leading an entourage to Arroyo Seco and I will likely lose five or six days or writing in the process.

If I'm lucky, I won't have to reread the other three segments (about 60,000 words) to get up to speed on the story.

If I do, I hope it's interesting reading.