19 September 2002

I'm curious to know if my recent reduction in appetite is because I'm off birth control pills, or simply because I have a slight cold. Whatever the reason, I wouldn't mind if it stayed this way. It's kind of nice to eat lunch and know I'm not actually going to want anything to eat again until I get home from work.

Ack. I just realized that after I put on a nice outfit and even put up my hair, I walked out of the house without putting on any earrings. Oh, well. It's not like anyone in my office would care, even if they noticed.

I guess it'll just be one of those days. I had several different meetings yesterday, and though each of them was shorter than I was expecting (thank goodness) it wasn't conducive to any kind of ordered train of thought. I'd wanted to get some writing done, but was too scatterbrained; all I managed was to polish off the last 250 words or so of the bit I'd been working on earlier in the week.

Though at K.T. and Kevin's last night, my stomach rebelled at the Denny's food I'd put in it, so instead of watching a movie, we sat around and talked. And K.T. and I talked about the novel, mostly, boring Kevin to tears. (Though as K.T. said, as often as she has to spend listening to Kevin talk about his work, she refuses to feel guilty about it.)

And I spent most of my time in yesterday's meetings thinking about the novel and the plot and refining certain points. So maybe that counts; I dunno.

We're rapidly approaching the 200,000 word mark, which is exciting all by itself. I've never come so far on a single project before. Even if we don't sell the book - even if we wind up only web-publishing, and paying out of pocket for bound copies for ourselves - it'll be one of the biggest achievements of my life.

Our few test readers have been enthusiastic. One of them, who has only read the preface and the first two chapters, told K.T. that she was crying by the end of it. (Gah; if she thought that section was moving, wait until she gets to the end of Part One!) Another, privy to our working directory, has been asking questions we weren't even going to address in this novel, but save for future volumes. (We've rather sheepishly plotted out four or five other stories which will take place in this world, and even decided the order in which we'll write them.)

K.T. thinks we can have our first full draft completed by Thanksgiving. I was dubious, but the more I think about it, the more I think she may be right. We've averaged 10,000 words a week for the last six weeks, and I doubt we're going to break 300,000 words with this novel. Another two months, at this rate, may very well see us finished. (Or at least, past the first major milestone. I'm fully aware that a rough draft is far from "finished.")

I can't convey how fascinated and excited I am by the whole process, even while being caught up in it.

--Liz