FOUR CHAPTERS AND COUNTING. . .

I finished typing, spell-checking, printing out, and page-numbering chapter sixteen.

I know, for a fact, that I have exactly four chapters left in the first draft.

As of the next chapter, seventeen, we are officially involved in the Big Finish.

And, since chapter sixteen makes 189 pages, I know that I will make my goal of just over 200 pages. With editing--both addition, subtractions, and general tightening--I hope to end up with a tight 200 pages to peddle to the agents.

Interestingly, a little bit of life got in the way yesterday. Some of my papers from school were piling up, and we are nearing the end of not only the grading period, but the entire school year, so I needed to take my writing time to grade and enter student work. In an unprecedented move, I took my laptop home and did about thirty minutes of work on chapter 16, effectively finishing it up so I could print it up today. I expect to get back to the keyboard before school next Monday to start the climax of School Spirit. It will be close, but I might still make my goal of finishing the first draft by the end of May.

I will be happy, of course, to finish it even a bit past that, but I'm shooting for end of May.

Wish me luck.

AND WE'RE OFF. . .

Figuring that my goal was to write two pages a day, and a page of manuscript contains an average of 250 words, my word count goal was about 500 words a day.

The first two or three days I worked for the thirty or forty minutes and barely met my goal--510, 520, something like that. I was getting to know the characters and trying to shake the cobwebs out of my keyboard (from lack of use and practice), and striving to get toward the beginning of the story.

Today, though, I hit what I call the inciting moment--the moment that gets the story going--and typing started to take off.

Today's forty-minute word count? 1,075.