Friday,
November 2, 2001

Chugging along nicely

Daily word count: 1,530

Word count for the month: 3,370

No, I'm not going to be boring you with a blow-by-blow recitation of the novel progress, but I thought you might be interested in seeing the actual numbers.

In any case, I'm about halfway through Chapter One, and things are starting to gel rather nicely (of course, it helps that I'm working with an outline this time). I won't actually have a finished novel by the end of November -- that would require at least 90,000 words -- but 50,000 will be a large enough chunk that I should be inspired enough to actually finish the mother. And then there will be editing throughout December and January with the occasional side trip through FutureClassics -- who knows, if all goes well I might even be able to start shipping this mother around by February.

Right around the time my contract is up. Well, at least something nice will be happening at that time.

Um, weren't you supposed to be in College Station by now?

Why, yes, I was. However, I had the day from hell due to work stress and various idiocies, so by the time I got home (which was around 7:30 PM), the only thing I wanted to do was go to bed and curl up into a fetal ball.

Besides, I still need to wash my musketeer garb. It wouldn't do to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival reeking of lemon drops, after all.