Finishing Out November

I wrote 1,284 words for the final day of November. My first full month has come to an end.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I smashed all the goals that I set for myself for the month. The first goal was to write every day. I was achieving that easily, so I upped the goal to 500 words per day, and I nailed that one too. I gave myself the total word count goal for the month of 15,000, and had that crushed by the 21st. So I upped the goal to 20,000 and passed that up by the 26th. It's amazing what you can accomplish if you just put your mind to it and work at it every day.

24541 / 20000 (122.70%)

I finished with 122.7% of my goal. Pretty cool.

I had one other goal, and that was to get my average words per day above 750...you know, as a kind of a step up from 500 toward 1,000 which is my goal starting tomorrow.

And there you have it, final average of 818. That's a big jump up from the four days I wrote in October which garnered me an average of 593. So, where does that leave me on my quest for the largest word count I've ever managed in a single year...or at least 304,475 words?

26913 / 304475 (8.84%)

Not very far along. We are 9.29% of the way through the year, and I'm only at 8.84%. That's going to change in a hurry now, though. Starting tomorrow I can't quit until I've reached a thousand words. Which means my monthly total will reach at least 30,000...31,000 actually, since there's 31 days in December. 

If I do the math, then I have to write 832 words a day to beat my year goal of 304,475. I almost averaged that this month, when I was only required to write 500 words a day. For the rest of the year I will be required to write at least 168 words above that average, meaning that barring some serious debilitation, I should easily make it. I just have to keep to the program.

Of course, I am tempted to take it even further. I mentioned in previous blog posts that I read a book about writing even more and faster called 5,000 Words Per Hour.

Some month here soon, depending on how the next few go, I may reread that book and employ the stuff he talks about in there to see if I can't up my output. There's a lot of tricks I want to try. For example, dictating my story into my phone when I'm driving to and from work in addition to my daily sit down writing session would massively increase my word count. There may come a day when I up my goal to 1,500 words a day or even 2,000. We shall see. I want to keep pushing myself.

However, I will no longer be writing these daily word count blog posts. It's just too much. It's time to pull back a little bit. For example, this post is over 500 words and took me twenty minutes or more to write. Imagine if I didn't use my time here, but rather on my book. What more could I accomplish with that?

So, the writing post will now cut back to a simple once a week thing. I guess I'll do them every Friday since that will be seven days from this post. I'll see you all then.

Santa And His Elves

Last year, a company called Fresh Monkey Fiction decided they would make a new line of toys called the Naughty or Nice Collection. The centerpiece of the line was a six inch scale Santa Clause figure. Then, they started making other things that would go with that like elves and nutcrackers. I was very interested in acquiring some of those figures. It was basically something I'd been asking for for years. My Christmas toy collection seemed pretty incomplete without a Santa Claus in the mix. So, I signed up for the pre-orders.

My figures came about two days before Christmas last year, so they didn't get much time on the shelf. This will be their first year there for the whole month.

I'm thinking about getting some more of them. Luckily, they're not all sold out yet. They did a number of different versions of Santa. As any toy collector knows, the expensive part of toymaking is creating the molds that the factory injects with plastic to create each piece of the toy. So, if you can use those molds many more times, by making variants or repaints, then you save a lot of money and therefore get to keep more profit in the end. 

So, toymakers always make repaints and variants. For example, the two elves up above are exactly the same mold from the shoulders down, but painted differently to make them appear to be completely new characters. They did this with Santa too, and I want some of the variants. For example the cyborg Santa:

He's exactly the same as the other Santa, except for the head and the hands, which are roboticized. He also comes with a fully robotic head.

And a shotgun, to make him as Terminator-like as possible. Then there's Zombie Santa:

Again, exactly the same body, just a new head and hands. Some stains and blood spatter painted onto the coat too, but that's just paint. Lastly, I want this Krampus:

Another same body but new head and hands...this guy has a tail too, which means that Santa's butt has a hole in it to plug the tail into even though he's just a regular Santa. Hmmm...

I like the look of this guy, and I like the idea of him somehow being Santa's evil half or something. Same outfit but now it's a demon!

I suppose, if and when I get these, I'll post about them on here, and show you some pictures. We'll see how it goes. I may not be able to afford it though. I just entered into a process that may drain away any money I might have had for toys this month, so it remains to be seen.

One Day Left This Month

I've been off work since before Thanksgiving, so I knew that today, my first day back, would probably be super busy. I likely wouldn't be able to spare time during my breaks to get any writing in, so I figured I'd better get it in early. Before even taking a shower in the morning, I sat down at the computer and typed out 1,137 words.

The month is one day from over, and I think I'm ready for the new month to come with its new goal. I've already achieved all the goals that I'd set for this month. 

23257 / 20000 (116.28%)

I've established the habit of writing every day, and easily managed to get 500 words each of those days. For the last four days, I've even hit 1,000 words every day, so I feel like I'm ready for the first month of 1,000 words a day.

My year-to-date looks like this:

My average is now over 800 words per day, so I'll hit my goal of 750 without fail. On the year, I'm over 25,000 now too.

25629 / 304475 (8.42%)

And I've even managed to blog about my progress every single day of the month. Who knows how much time and words I've wasted on that. But I like to have the record of it. I'll probably scale it back to once a week next month. We'll see.

Snow Patrol

I made this last year, after Rish Outfield picked up the Fortnite Slushie Soldier for me. I thought it would be funny for him to be the leader of a band of revolutionary snowmen. So, I made a few regular ones, gave them guns. Then I took a Spider-woman figure that I'd stolen the head from to use for a custom Baroness figure from GI Joe that I'd made, and made a snowman head for her too. And voilà, the snow patrol.

I feel like it could do with a few more members, but I haven't got around to that yet. And I probably never will, to be honest. Although I did see some snowman ornaments at the dollar store that might be able to fit in with these guys. I might pick them up and add them to the mix. We'll see.

Sleeping Near the Enemy on The Rish Outcast

Rish Outfield just posted a new episode of his podcast in which I make an appearance. It's a sketch called "Sleeping Near the Enemy."

It's another story with Bjorn and Gerald talking in further detail about an obscure line from their first sketch. Subscribe to Rish's podcast so that you can have the files delivered right to your iPod...you know, that device that Apple has now discontinued...or your phone if you don't have an iPod. Or you can head over to Rish's blog to hear it. Or simplest of all, you could just click the play button below to listen right now!

The End Is Near

November is almost over. Only two more days left. That will be the end of my first full month of writing, and it'll be interesting to see what my total is by then. Today, I marked the third day in a row of hitting 1,000 words. Not much more than 1,000. Only 1,013, but it's more. It could have been less. When I checked my word count, it was at 989, and I swore, then went back and wrote one more sentence. I suppose that might give me a little help when I start tomorrow. I'll already have something to build on.

That puts me at 22,120. Probably not going to quite make it to 25,000 since 13 is not enough slop to add up to anything. That's fine, though. I'm already over my first goal and even my second supplemental goal.

22120 / 20000 (110.60%)

110% is pretty awesome. If you went back to my first goal of 15,000 it would be almost 150%. So, I'm pretty happy with November.

Year-to-date looks like this:

Not even to 25,000 for the whole year yet, but my average for the month is well above 750, so that's pretty great.

24492 / 304475 (8.04%)

Today I bumped up over the 8% mark too. Super cool. Gotta keep this going. I'm really enjoying the game of it all.

Christmas Pez

It's no secret that I collect Pez dispensers, although, to be truthful, I've pretty much given up on that now. I don't get new ones very often. I figure I've got more than enough. I can't even find a place for most of them on my shelves anymore, so why get more? 

The other day I came across Loony Tunes Pez dispensers, and almost bought them, because that's a property that I like but don't have Pez for, but then I decided to put them back and leave them behind, because I had no place to put them. I have Loony Tunes Lego minifigures, and that was going to have to be the extent of my Loony Tunes collection.

I did however get one new Pez dispenser this past week. It was this reindeer. 

That's because it's a Christmas Pez dispenser, and each and every year, I put those up. I find a place for them and put them all up, so there's no problem getting more, and each and every year, they usually put out one or two new ones that I can add.

So, let's see what we've got.

Most of them are not available anymore, but that polar bear in the green and red hat was at the store next to the reindeer the other day. The penguins and snowglobes were not however. The world has moved on from them. It's kind of sad that I got two of each of those just because they had slight variations...a blue penguin to a green penguin, or a different picture on the snowglobe.

Mickey and Minnie here are new from last year. I'd never seen them before that. Throw a Santa hat on them and bam! Christmas decorations. That's something I'd love to do with all of my toys at Christmas time. Getting hats for them all is the hard part though. I tried to make a few of them last year, but it was more work than I was willing to put in to make enough to give out to all the toys.

I did see some for sale on Amazon, but I couldn't tell if they would be the right size, so I never bothered to buy them. Maybe I ought to revisit that...

Oops. I got off topic. When I got that reindeer I showed you before, it displaced a third snowglobe that I have...you know, different picture—and a different colored base this time too...so, since Mickey and Minnie had some extra space, I added it to the middle of them.

It's kinda weird though. Maybe I need to rearrange things. Maybe I ought to put all the snowglobes together, and put other stuff elsewhere. I'll have to look into that...or possibly leave it until next year.

I have these two snowmen.

The one with the red hat is the current one, the black hat is the old version. With all of these Christmas things, they tend to update them every few years. I guess it's to get collector chumps like me that will buy the new versions. They don't need to do it for the people who buy one for the kids to put in their stocking or something, those people will get whatever one is available, even if it's the same one that's been there on the store shelves since 2003. Sooner or later, there'll be another new snowman, and I'll add it to my group. I'll have to get them a new spot though, this one will only fit the two.

The other big group is these random ones.

They don't go together except for the fact that they are all things associated with Christmas...oh, maybe you can't tell, but that isn't just a sleeping blond girl, it's an angel. It has wings coming off its back. You can see just a hint of the white wings behind the hair on the left side.

Then there's Santa and his elves and reindeer.

Those elves are all the same dispenser, except that they colored them differentlly, so it looks like I've got three different elves. I would have kept buying more and more if they'd come up with other color schemes year after year.

Of course, as I said before, they're always updating them, and they just recently did that with Santa and his elves. Here's the new style.

It's just dot eyes now on Santa and the reindeer, although the elves had already converted over to that before. They made a new rounder-headed version of the elf, though. I wonder if there are other color versions out there...I ought to start watching for that.

As I showed you at the start, they already made a new version of the reindeer. So this group has two. Sadly, they don't quite fit in the spot made for them, due to those antlers. I may need to move them to a new larger spot next year, especially if there are more elves in different colors or something.

I wonder how many years it will take before I get enough reindeer to have eight...I've got three already. Come on, Pez. You can do it.

Two Thousand Word Days In A Row

The end of the month is really soon, and my goal will be changing from 500 words a day to 1,000, so I guess it's good that I'm starting to get the hang of that length. Today, I wrote 1,092 words. That's two days in a row at 1,000. I should probably see if I can't do that every day from here on out. Who knows, if I did, I might even make it to 25,000 words for the month.

That might be a stretch, considering that I'm only at 21,107 for the month, but it depends on how much slop I get...you know, how many extra words above 1,000. Today it was only 92, but yesterday it was 364. If I got 364 every day, then that would add up to an extra thousand by the end of the month. That's probably pushing it, considering that 1,364 is my all-time high so far, but you never know.

Here's the progress meter for the month.

21107 / 20000 (105.53%)

Should I bother to keep showing it now that I'm five percent above my goal? I don't know, but I probably will anyway. I guess it's a good way to gloat. Everybody loves someone who gloats.

Here's the year-to-date chart.

 My average is even higher. I think I'd have to really blow it not to keep it above 750 now.

With my total of 23,479 this is what my progress meter for the year looks like.

23479 / 304475 (7.71%)

No chance for gloating here. Instead, I just feel small under that gigantic onus. Time will heal that wound, though, as long as I keep at it.

Many Days Of Christmas Decorations

I could do the 12 days of Christmas decorations, but I've got way more pictures than that, so it'll just be Many Days of Christmas Decorations. This is day one. Here is the scene at this beautiful idyllic small Christmas village. Unfortunately, the kaiju named Gamora showed up, which meant that Ultraman had to come along to save these poor people.

Click on the picture to get a larger view of it.

Anybody else remember Ultraman? Good thing he's here for the world.

Beating The Month's Goal Again

Turned out to be a big day. It's funny, because it wasn't that way. At first, I couldn't get a chance at my computer. If I'd have realized what it was going to be like, I probably would have got my bluetooth keyboard and wrote on my phone. My wife and kids spent all day on there shopping for Cyber Monday deals. Can it be Cyber Monday already when it's only Sunday?

I did manage to eke out about 400 words at one point, before my wife came in and asked to use the computer again, kicking me off. Then, I almost forgot, and didn't come back to get over 500. As I was about to go to bed, I remembered, and ran out to sit down and write some more. After a little while behind the keyboard, I checked the word count and I had just hit my highest total so far.

Yup, I wrote 1,364 words today. Several hundred over my second best. And I wasn't even trying to do that. It just happened. I was just trying to make it over 500...well, over 750, because I wanted to bring my average up. But I definitely didn't expect to get have my best day yet.

And look at my monthly total. What does that make my meter look like?

20015 / 20000 (100.08%)

That's right, I'm over the goal. 100.08%. And I've still got several days to go.

Oh, speaking about writing until I get 750 so that my average would go up, check this out:

With that big time day, I'm above the average I was hoping to reach. I love it when a plan comes together. But not everything is honky dory. Let me bring in my year-to-date meter to bring us all back down to earth.

22387 / 304475 (7.35%)

There we go. That's barely showing any progress at all. That'll keep me from getting a big head. Still got a lot of work to do, no matter how well this month is going.

Merry And Very Bright

I added more lights to my display today. I put the rows along the bottom and top of the shelves.

Now all is merry and bright. So bright, in fact, that it looks like I forgot to turn the light off in the room when I go around before bed making sure all the lights are out.

Four Weeks Plus One

Okay, this is the fifth Saturday in a row that I've written.

I probably could have gotten more words, but I definitely could have gotten less too. I almost quit earlier several times. However, seeing my average go lower instead of higher made me keep going. I was never going to get to 750 average per day if I kept undercutting myself. After today, I'm only four words away.

But I also only have five days left in the month. Is that enough? I hope so. With averages it's hard to say. You have to overcome the low numbers from earlier in the month with higher numbers. It seems like, every day that I write above 750 that I should bring the average up, and I suppose that is true, but it may not bring it up enough. So, I've got to keep at it.

So, my meter for the month has me at:

18651 / 20000 (93.25%)

93% I think means that this goal is also definitely going to happen. I probably should have put this down as my goal from the beginning, instead of wimping out with the 15,000 goal, which is simply getting exactly 500 words a day. Nobody gets exactly 500 words, you always go over. So, of course there will be more. In my defense, however, I was just supposed to be remembering to write this month. The goal was just to write every day. I suspected that I would be out of the habit enough that I might need that. Turns out, I was just fine, and was able to skip ahead to the 500 words a day goal that was supposed to be for next month.

My year-to-date meter says this:

21023 / 304475 (6.90%)

Dang, just missed the 7% level. Maybe I ought to take my numbers to the meter before deciding if I'm done for the day. That way I could know if I only needed a few more words to hit another level. I guess I'll get there tomorrow. It doesn't matter, because 29 days is 7.945% of a year...although, this upcoming year is a leap year, so it's actually on 7.923%. Either way I'm almost a full percent behind where I need to be to beat the goal. It's okay, I'll pass that up next month in the 1,000 words a day goal month.

Toy Decorations

And now I hit you with the onslaught of toy decorations for Christmas.

I felt bad at Halloween time, because I was too lazy to put up my stuff. I usually go all out, but I just didn't feel like it. The thought of putting up the Halloween decorations just made me tired. So, I wimped out, and did nothing. 

The worst part is that I did the same thing last year. We'd just had our floors redone, so my study wasn't back in shape for decorations. Two years in a row with no Halloween decorations. There's a bunch of new stuff that I've bought that has yet to even get a chance on the shelves.

To make sure I didn't do the same for Christmas, I got out my Christmas bins on November 1st, and started putting it up a little at a time, just a thing or two each day. That way, it wouldn't be overwhelming, and I'd get it up in plenty of time. 

So, that video is the first of my many displays of my Christmas toy decorations. I'll keep posting them here over the next few weeks until you've seen them all. I know, you're on the edge of your seat and will be tuning in every day for a new thrilling post of my toy decorations. I'm sure you can't wait. See you there.

Four Weeks Complete

Okay. I started this on a Saturday, so by writing today, I have managed to finish out four straight weeks of writing. What did I accomplish in that time? Well, here's my monthly chart:

It's going pretty well for the month. I'm already above my old goal of 15,000 words, so I made a new goal of 20,000. My total of 17,875 so far puts me at 89.38% of that goal.

17875 / 20000 (89.38%)

So, that's pretty great. But that's only 24 days. If I add in the other four days that I wrote in October, then we are at:

I am now over 20,000 words so far on the year. Not this month yet, but on the year. That's a nice round number, and it always feels good to surpass round numbers. My year-to-date progress meter says:

20247 / 304475 (6.65%)

Still in the 6% zone, but ever improving. It feels good, and I'm gonna keep at it.

Non-Toy Decorations

It's the day after Thanksgiving, the official start of the Christmas season and the traditional day for putting up your decorations. We usually do ours a little earlier than that, because if we're going to put that much work into something, we'd like to be able to enjoy it for a little bit longer. 

Our decorations, however, usually take more than just one day to put up. Today, we got around to putting up our outside decorations, and I just wanted to share this picture with you. This is my favorite part of our outdoor Christmas decorations.

I don't know what it is, but this palmetto tree with ornaments on it just says Christmas in Houston to me. The only way I could make it more so is if I spray painted the Texas flag onto the fronds. I just love it, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Tomorrow, I think I'll start showing off my toy-themed decorations. I've spent the last month putting them all up to make sure that I didn't wimp out on it like I did for Halloween. See you then.

Eating The Frog Before Eating The Turkey

I suspected that today would be tough to find a time for writing, so I jumped on it early again. I ate that frog first thing. I put on my sweats and jacket, and went out for a walk. I dictated 599 words into my phone as I went. It was a little miserable, because it is really cold in Houston right now. It was about 45 degrees out there, and I hadn't prepared for that. I had to keep my hands out to hold the phone to my mouth for dictation, and my hands froze to death.

599 is pretty weak. It's going to bring my average back down, but I made the daily goal, and I did it on Thanksgiving, which is better than a lot of people can say. It wasn't enough to put me over 17,000 for the month, though. Boo.

16969 / 20000 (84.84%)

84.84% of the way there. I'm going to definitely beat that goal too. I was only trying to get to 15,000 for the month, but an extra five thousand will come easily, it seems.

That did bring my average back down, though. It's seven words down today. Back at 737. Gonna need a few 1,000 word days so I can get over 750.

19341 / 304475 (6.35%)

Nothing to really remark about with the meter. Still in the 6% level. Still behind, but making plodding progress. Maybe, if I get time, I'll see if I can't add a few words for the day. We'll see how busy the day turns out to be. We're not going anywhere, but we are all home together, so we'll probably be doing some nice family activities or something.

PIcking Up A Chick

When I was at Ollie's the other day, I managed to finally get that Sgt. Slaughter for my nephew John. He was pretty excited.

I also found that they had a few new GI Joes to choose from. One of which I had been considering acquiring. Zarana is a figure I had back when I was a kid.My favorite episode of the GI Joe TV series is the one where Mainframe and Zarana have a little Romeo and Juliet-style love affair across enemy lines.

But, I had decided that I would only get the original three Dreadnoks to go with my Zartan. I was only going for Ripper, Buzzer, and Torch. Zarana was a later addition that I didn't feel I needed. Especially since getting Zarana kind of necessitates getting her brother, Zandar, who is pretty lame. Yeah, I had that guy as a kid too.

But at Ollie's, they had Zarana for $4.99, and I couldn't turn that down. So, here she is:She super hot. I mean, look at those abs!

Although she's totally bald. That's just a toupee she's wearing.You can actually switch her hair out. She came with a second hair piece. That one is supposed to be like the classic one that the original figure had.I don't know which one I like better. Usually I would automatically side with the classic look, but this hair looks a little strange. It looks like some kind of Elvis Presley-type do to me. I'll have to think about it.

A while back, I found the Fortnite figure called TNTina on at a bigtime sale. I didn't have any idea what I might do with it, but I liked the figure for some reason, so I bought it. I don't know why, really. It was probably going to just sit in a box and never get displayed. It was stupid. One thing that I thought about that figure, however, was that it kind of looked like it would fit in with the Dreadnoks...specifically with Zarana. Maybe, I thought, I'll put the two together if I ever get a Zarana. Well, now I have one, do I need to make a space on the shelf for the two of them?Zartan gets all the hot chicks, right? Although, I think Zarana is actually supposed to be his sister, so forget I said that. That's gross.

Croaking At Me All Day

I left the frog till later today. I didn't even have a good reason for it. I just got distracted by other shiny things, and before you know it, I was on my way to work and still hadn't written. So, when my lunch break came, I had to hit it hard. It turned out to be fine, though. My fingers danced like ballerinas across the keys, and by the time I was done, I had 1,060 words for the day.

That's actually my highest output of the year so far...by one word. It's a PR! I'll take it, no matter how slight the win is.

My meter for my new goal of 20,000 on the month says:

16370 / 20000 (81.85%)

81.85% of the way. Getting 1,000 in a day is definitely a good way to make progress toward a goal.

My year-to-date chart says:

Brought my average all the way up to 744. A few more days like this, and I'll be over 750.

18742 / 304475 (6.16%)

Up another percent toward the goal now, at 6.16%, but I'm still lagging behind, since 27 days is 7.4% of a year. It's alright. I'll catch up when the goal shifts to 1,000 a day.

What You Might Find While Wandering

While I was out this weekend, I stopped in at the dollar store. There was something that I'd wanted to pick up, but I couldn't remember what it was by the time I got to the store, so I wound up wandering the store hoping that I'd come across it and it would jog my memory.

While wandering, I came across these little guys:

They're tiny little figurines, but they would fit nicely in a cubby in my study. I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, and not only do they work as Halloween decorations, but there's a Santa Jack to transform them from Halloween into Christmas decorations, so I could keep them up for about four months out of the year if I get my Halloween decorations up by the start of September.

I brought them home, and put them up with the other Christmas decorations that I have been putting up in my study this week as I transform it from normal study to Christmas study.

Next year, I'll put regular Jack Skellington up and we'll keep the fun going.

That Frog Wasn't So Bad

I lived up to my challenge that I gave myself last night. I got up this morning, and did my writing as the very first thing. I thought back to the days of writing I did last summer, and decided to go for a walk and dictate the story while I went. As usual, it worked great and killed two birds with one stone. I got exercise and writing done at the same time. I finished up my walk with 851 words added to my book.

Dictation can be a little funny, though. Let me add in some of the silly misinterpretations that the phone made from my words:

Before she managed to finish packing away all her camera equipment, Heidi and another serpent arrived to help her carry it.

That should be a servant, not a serpent. I have no idea how a serpent could help you carry anything. They don't even have arms.

then, no well spent the rest of the afternoon in her room, working on editing down the interview.

Then is lower case, even though it starts a sentence. No idea why that would be. Of course, having the name 'Noelle' converted into 'no well' is probably the more egregious error in this.

When 6:00 PM came, she closed down her editing software, went to the closet, and squeezed into her skin, tight jeans and sweater.

I checked, and according to the oxford dictionary, the proper way to say skintight is as a compound word. There's not even a dash between the two parts of the word like you sometimes get. There's definitely not supposed to be a comma and a space in the middle of it.

The tight sweater was drawing Jurgens I, but would eating this much, turn it away?

I think that might be the wrong homophone there. Also, there's only one Jurgen. That should probably have an apostrophe in it instead. And why the extra comma between much and turn?

She - through the door, that Klaus, the chef, had disappeared into after leaving them with their food.

This one might be hard to figure out. What I said was "She dashed through the door that Klaus, the chef, had disappeared into after leaving them with their food," but when you're dictating, there are certain things that are punctuation. I'm not sure how you would say a sentence like, "It had been a long period of strife in his country," because the phone would just turn the word period into the punctuation mark. "It had been a long . Of strife in his country." Also, it added an extra unnecessary comma after the word door.

Anyway, I suppose that's enough. Here's my chart for today:

I'm over my goal for the month now!

15310 / 15000 (102.07%)

102% of my goal! Hurray! I guess I'm going to up my goal to 20,000 and see if I can't reach that before the month is out. I bet I can. I easily managed it on my 500 words a day month in 2022.

In fact, I made it all the way to 25,000. Of course, that was my second month of the process, not my first. So, I'm still going to finish out ahead of myself from last year. In my just-write-every-day month last year, I only got 17,540.

I think I'll crush that. In fact, I have to crush that, because 500 words a day times 9 days makes 4,500 words.

My year-to-date chart looks like this:

Nothing amazing, since it only adds 2,372 words to my total, bringing it to 17,682. But I did bring my average for the month back up to 729. If I keep kicking butt, I might get it above 750.

17682 / 304475 (5.81%)

Still not out of the 5% level yet, but I'll get there.

The interesting thing is that it's only 10:00 AM. I usually write much later than this. I could still put in more time writing later if I find that I have the time. So, it's possible that I'll have to adjust all these numbers up a little bit. If so, I'll mention it in tomorrow's post, though. I'm not gonna rewrite this post later. Forget it.