Word count today: 1,582

Total word count: 42,003

Words to go: 7,997

8,000 words to go, and just four days left. That's about 2K per day; it's doable. I hope I'm not feverishly typing the end of the book at 11:55 on Friday night--but if that's what it takes to finish, that's what I'll do.

I thought today might be a good word-count day. We got our daughter to bed about 7:30, and I thought I might be able to settle in and get a couple hours of writing done before bed. I ended up needing to take care of a couple things and didn't get going until 9:00. I had a burst of creative...er, creativity, and lots of useful dialogue came gushing out of my brain onto my computer screen. I feel like I could have written for a couple more hours. I had some great ideas, and the prose seemed to be just burning of my fingertips. At one point I kind of felt like I was taking dictation from the characters (the National Novel Writing Month folks kept saying that would happen toward the end, but I never quite believed it). I still have some dialogue rattling around inside me--but I also have a job with a 5:45 start time. I've got to get to bed.

I'm happy with where things are moving. I think the various plot threads are going to come together in a reasonably coherent manner (at least for a cheesy sci-fi novel). I'm not having to stretch too far to make everything gel. I know there are some serious continuity issues as I've discarded some ideas, orphaned some plot lines, and stranded some characters along the way, but that's for the second draft I'll probably never write.