56636

I end the week with the halfway mark just outside my grasp, at 56636 words. The writing is slowing in part due to a fairly complicated timeline in the middle of the book. My three main plot lines will collide soon, and getting all the characters to the right place at the right time is proving tricky. I'm also discovering, as always, that some characters have minds of their own and aren't cooperating with my plans for them in quite the way I expected.

The rest of the month is looking complicated. I know I'll make it ot 60k, probably this week, but my original hope was to be closer to 75k at the end of August and I just don't see that happening now. But, maybe I can make it to 65k, and try to recapture momentum on the weekends in September. I still have a week's vacation banked up as well, so I'm thinking of using that in early October, but I'm worried about using it up too early. I'm still on track to finish my first draft by the end of October, and I may find a week off more useful to me for crafting the rewrites than for banging out the first draft.