There are perks to writing short novels.

Such as, that you can actually remember what you've written so you don't contradict yourself in the middle.

And it's easier to stay interested in the plot.

And it's not repetitive.

And best of all, it doesn't take very long to write them.

Unfortunately I'm not writing a short novel. Stinks to be me. On the flip side, there is a certain amount of pride in seeing the word count grow higher and higher with each passing page. I'm sitting pretty at 70,660. (That means, by the way, that this is the longest work I've ever written, complete or incomplete.) I should write another chapter later, if I stop procrastinating and, more importantly, stop writing this blog post. Neither of which have happened so far.

On the flip side of the flip side, I just finished chapter sixteen (of twenty-four). I need to get to chapter twenty-two at least before the OYAN Workshop. (So far my pace is okay: I've finished four chapters in the last week. But they were short chapters.) I'll be lucky if I get to twenty, I think.

And while luck is at the job, maybe I could wake up at eight tomorrow and write till noon. I think that's simply a dream of a dream—but we'll see.

Also, I wish I had written more in my outline before starting my novel. When it's midnight and I'm all out of ideas, I need my outline to give me a little more than a vague sentence with an uncertain parenthesis or two. (A while back I looked ahead to chapter fifteen and was horrified to find a line of question marks in the middle of a paragraph.)

What about you lot? Writing much lately? Are any of you OYANers out there busy preparing for the SW yet? (Yeah, me neither.)

Oh, and have you read any good books? I just finished one. The Ravaged Realm by D. Barkley Briggs, which was excellent and reminiscent of Lawhead, except more character-driven and not quite as focused on the dusty-history-scholarly stuff, which is a good thing.

Ah, right. I'm supposed to be writing. Gotta fly.