Output/progress info during a long program?

I have a maxima program which sometimes takes a while to compute.  I'd like
to print out some encouraging messages along the way: "Half way there" sort
of thing.  But it seems that  a print statement in a program block will only
be executed when the whole block is completed.  Is there any way of
implementing some sort of progress information (maybe a line of +'s.or the
occasional message) in Maxima?

Thanks,
Alasdair