I had planned for the fifth Astrid Maxxim book to be the Electric Racecar Challenge all along, and had built up to it in the previous books.  As I was writing Astrid Maxxim and her Hypersonic Space Plane, I came across an article about a woman who had suffered amnesia in an auto accident.  I decided that it was how I wanted to start the next Astrid book.  It would be quite a shocker opening.

I wrote the first two chapters and then got sidetracked writing His Robot Girlfriend: Charity.  I got back to Astrid and then got sidetracked again, first writing a few new chapters of Kanana: the Jungle Girl and then writing the entirety of The Price of Magic.  At that point, I looked back at the Astrid book, which was about half done, and thought “get to it!”

Even after all that, I ended up with everything but the last chapter done and got stuck.  I don’t really know why.  I knew what I wanted to write.

One little thing I’ve been playing with is that each last chapter of an Astrid book is named for a Shakespearean play.  I was stuck with this book until I suddenly realized that I could name the rival race car the Cheetah Tempest.  There you go!