Word count today: 1,799

Total word count: 40,421

Words to go: 9,579

In addition to posting my daily word count and the accumulated total so far, I'm also going to count down how many words I have left to go. I decided to add that bit of information because it's really starting to hit me that I'm going to do this. I've got under 10,000 words left to go, and five more days to get there. At the beginning of this month that would have seemed like a lot, but I think I'm actually in good shape. I've written all but three or four days this month. Aside from those zero-output days, my daily word count has varied anywhere from 343 words to 4100 words. My average has been about 1900. That's about how many words I'll need to write every day to hit the goal. Thursday's not looking too good this week, but the rest of the week I'm hoping I'll find some time during the day to write.

The big question for me beside the word count is whether I'll actually find an ending to my story. Some of the big threads are starting to come together (including a couple I had no idea would make any sense at all). I've got a couple issues to tie together, including a time-travel element I've never really explained. I'm pretty sure it's going to come down to a character who has been missing but isn't neccesarily dead; I haven't figured out how to explain his ability to travel through time. I'm sure it will come to me.

I stumbled on an interesting question as I was writing tonight, and one I think would be worth exploring further. How would the world's major religions deal not only with the existence of aliens, but with an event that resulted in the destruction of the earth and some kind of remant of survivors? What if the world ended, but humanity didn't? If there's anything so far that would potentially be the seed of a novel, that question might be it. I also thought about some groups to whom a comping apolcalypse is central to their worldview (Seventh-Day Adventists, Christian Fundamentalists, and Jehovah's Witnesses came to mind). How would they react if they survived the end of the world--not in a heavenly place, but through ordinary physical means? I think Catholicism allows for some interesting (and theologically plausible) answers to those questions. Some other groups would have a hard time even asking them.