Altitude 40k And Climbing

Manuscript milestone — we just hit 40,000 in Grandson of Science Novel. The previous book’s word count came in light (by our standards) but based on the progress so far it really doesn’t look like we’ll have such concerns about this one.

Obsessing over word count is silly, except that it isn’t. Genre conventions, reader expectations, pacing through a series, all are important considerations impacted by word count. In our particular case, we see it as significant because it is a deviation from our customary results. We’ve been regarding it as a symptom and trying to diagnose the underlying cause. The picture that’s coming into focus is something along the lines of, “Holy crap, there’s a lot of story here! We must be extra-laser focused!” And then succeeding a bit too admirably at that.

The other big news this week has been our internet being out. New modem didn’t help, so we’ll be visited by the cable gnomes soon in hopes of figuring out what’s actually wrong. Funny how not having access to distractions like Twitter and email doesn’t automatically make it easier to be productive. (At least Kent says it doesn’t.) That would have been a nice silver lining.

Anyway, if you need us we’ll be waving our phones at the ceiling in a futile quest for faster hotspot performance.