Got in a good four hours, bringing the year’s final tally to 698k words, 365 writing days, an average of 1914 words a day, and a total of 711 hours of writing and 643 hours of reading. That’s a pretty good year right there. Was debating spending another few hours and getting it up to 700k for the year, but since this is the first year in which I broke 600k, I figured I might as well leave one milestone left for next year. I’m at almost exactly 2.5m lifetime words. And, barring some massive change in my working habits, it’s almost certain that by this time next year I’ll have written my three millionth word (of crap). 

Incidentally, a few days ago, I started work on another novel. An adult novel, this time. Not my first attempt at one. I’ve completed first drafts of three adult novels, but they were all pretty bad. I have no idea why. I think that when I try to write adult novels, I always get too cute and end up wandering too far from my characters. Whereas for my young adult stuff, I think it’s easier to stay closer to primary emotions. So this time I tried to keep it simple. I’m writing about a pregnant single mother who, while desperately struggling to get a marriage proposal from the father of her unborn child, discovers–through a brain scan–that she is a sociopath.

Just about a woman struggling to raise her children and find love, despite her inability to feel empathy. Pretty simple stuff, really.