August 31st – 737,905

3,187 words today and in the process I’ve solved my conundrum about the plot and the timing. I’ve worked out how to get from a to b, and on to the ending in a way that works within the story, and more importantly meets the suspension of disbelief criteria that make the story work. I now have about a day’s work writing the transition scene and the black moment scene, and then another day to write the ending of the book. So I guess this one is going to top out at around the 47k marker making it slightly long for a novella, but hey-ho, sometimes a story is as long as a story is and there’s no messing with it.

Since today is the end of August, it’s time to do a quick numbers roundup, I’ve now got 262.1k words to go on the challenge, so all things being equal I should finish at around the end of November, although there are a couple of personal commitments coming up that may derail that by a total of 9 to 10 days.

Over July and August I’ve averaged over 3.4k words per day, without missing a day, and in fact without dropping below 3k for any individual day. This has put me something over 72k in front of target, or 26 and a third days ahead of the word count metronome. In fact if I counted this blog within my word count – which I don’t - that would put me another 55k in front.

On the personal front too, things are picking up with both our health’s improving, and yesterday’s scan revealed our daughter will be giving birth to a boy, and everything is fine. Our third grandchild will be the first boy and I’m quite sure his lavish their affection on him. Our eldest granddaughter starts full time school next week, so it’s going to be a fun time in that household.