Did you ever wonder ...

If someone is wandering around whining, is he just being peripathetic?

If I am thinking of things like this, couldn't I put that psychic energy to better use on the book?

Actually, rain showers continued into the afternoon, and I did put in some more work on the book. It is now at about 22,000 words. By comparison, Wickedness is only 17,000. The Wicca book comes in at about 95,000. I do not intend for this book to be as long as that one. I don't intend it to be, but I never intended Wicca to be that long either. The John of the Cross mystery is about 65,000 words. I would like Wacky to be about that length or just a bit longer in published form. At this point the word count is pretty meaningless, because lots will be chopped out when the editing starts. 

Another way of looking at it is that I have a completed draft of the first six chapters of a projected fifteen-chapter volume. By that standard, I have 40% of a first draft. That feels okay, especially since I have already done a detailed outline of a couple of the remaining chapters. I have a skeleton outline of the entire novel, and if I can stay on track and not get waylaid by interesting sidelines -- which has happened a bit lately, I must admit, as a couple of characters have become rather playful -- I should be able to have this thing out before Christmas.
 
Because I know all of you are going to want to get copies for everyone on your list!

But wait! There's more.

No, I guess not really.