I'm smack in the middle of this stinking swamp right now. It's oozing at me green tentacles of slime and fuming my nose a mix of noxious gases and...well, it happens in every book I write, but only now do I see it clearly and know what it is, this dreadful viscous middle of a draft when the excitement of the beginning has worn off and the catharsis of the ending is too far away to be felt yet. I'm in the middle of the first draft of TUBE, at exactly 49K words, and it's fucking dragging.