Got some good stuff down today, or so I hope. I never know until I read it back later. I did some editing too and found that a lot of what I had written previously was not too bad, so I was feeling pretty good about my output today. I’ve added about 5000 words to ‘Jeffries’ since I began lengthening it into a novel. Mind you, I wrote about 10,000 total but removed chunks of it because a lot of what I put down just didn’t really fit. This has been a lot harder than just putting down a first draft since I already have so much that feels pretty polished, and by adding a bunch of scenes in between, I’m creating situations where there’s a lot to change. I’m struggling to keep track of it all, and my notes file swells daily.

I’m hoping to get at least 70,000 words, maybe a little longer if I can swing it. It’ll be a short novel, but a novel nonetheless. For a standalone book, that seems like the sweet spot to me. I’m excited to see where it goes, although actually writing it has been pretty frustrating so far. I think it’ll get better once I start adding to the end rather than in the middle. That way I don’t have to edit a bunch of stuff that sandwiches the new material for coherence. But anyway, progress! Yay.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley