Another Brief Update

I know I promised one Monday or Sunday, but I got distracted by other things, like my wife being sick and reading Notre Dame blogs and whatnot. You know, that damned thing called life that tends to get in the way whenever you have something you REALLY want to do.

So, I ended up finishing a chapter. That was one of the other reasons why I delayed posting a new update. I wanted to have completed a new chapter. The only problem was, this one took me a bit longer than I intended. It featured several scenes that I have schemed over the past few weeks and it's a somewhat important chapter in the story, so I wanted to get it perfect. More perfect than all the other chapters I wanted to be absolutely perfect. So, I took my time, got it done right (for a first draft) and now I'm moving on to another chapter. So, 16 is done. I can add that to the finished list giving me a grand total of 16 finished (with epilogue and prologue) and six started and/or in various degrees of completion. I won't list them again until I have some real progress.

I've also found it to be difficult to have two characters who are traveling together who are unable to interact. They just look. There is minimal interaction such as points and nods and the occasional picture drawn in the dirt with a stick, but that's it. I decided to not have my human girl know how to read as that makes the story more challenging for both my main characters. The other main human character, the young knight, is beginning to catch on as to why the girl travels with such a strange group.

Anyway, the totals:

Word Count: 82761
Page Count: 273

From a numbers standpoint, this looks nice. I'm hoping to be close to 100,000 by the end of the month. If I finish the six chapters I have started, that should be very attainable. That would also give me more of a confidence boost. Right now the light at the end of the tunnel looks like a pinprick.

Speaking of pricks...I read a story today that was very disturbing. I'll just leave it at this: Coach Knight might have been accused of and gotten away with a lot of shit at IU. But he never, ever was accused of punching his kids in the junk in order to "get them fired up" like some high school coach in Colorado allegedly was. Yikes. Makes that little pop on the chin seem tame now, huh?