This week has gone by pretty fast, but I’ve been looking ahead a lot.

Still, I managed to reach my highest word count written since the summer.

A fair bit of my work things this week have focused on what’s coming. I have two weeks off work around the Christmas holiday, so I’ve been preparing my team for my absence. They’ll be fine , but I don’t want any big surprises on my return.

I’m really looking forward to being at home with Nugget. My wife goes back to work on Monday, so this will be the first of two extended stints I have to be a stay-at-home dad. I saved both my PTO and the rest of my paternity leave for exactly this reason.

Then, the Grandmas are covering for us at different points until Nugget starts daycare.

Get ready for some Super Dad-Life blogs.

On the Writing Front…

I wrote 4,000 words this week, which is my highest weekly total since I started this novel. I mean, of course I had my best single day of writing in like…  a year the week after I tamp down my own goals.

Most of that came on Sunday, when I lit my keyboard on fire with 2,600 words. But, days like that are just as valuable as writing 700+ words for five days straight. I have yet to hit that mark in recent months.

That’s why I’m holding firm to my 10,000-word goal for December. I can’t count on replicating that 2,600-word day every week.

I Like how The Warden of Everfeld: Legacy is coming along. I’m 2—- words into the story, and I’ve really only just introduced the four primary characters. I will be focusing on one more than the others, and I’m really excited to delve into her narrative.

The other three will get their due, but their narratives will be spelled throughout the story by each other and the main arc.

But there is a lot of plot development to come on all fronts. This story will feature more one-off or short-run character arcs than Memento. That’s mostly to provide context to the story at large. I’m planning to use more utility characters to have eyes and ears in locations my primary characters will never visit.

I’m theoretically aiming for 180,000 words, which would be about 25k less than Memento, but we’ll see. I really won’t have a solid idea o total length until I get into the meat of the plot.

One thing I do know: I’d like Legacy to be a comparable length to Memento.

Goals for 12/14

1. Get closer to 10,000 words written on the month
2. Start revising Mythos
3. Enjoy a long weekend with the family

Steve D