Wordcount Wednesday

So close and yet . . .

It would appear that my self-imposed deadlines and limits are falling to pieces. A few weeks ago, I thought I was doing pretty good and quietly decided that I would try to finish Failstate by Easter. Yeah, that's not gonna happen now. While I'm getting closer to the endgame, I'm nowhere near enough to finish by Sunday, especially not with Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in between there.

Also somewhat discouraging is the fact that my self-imposed target wordcount is going to be blown as well. I had originally targeted 80,000 words for this book. As of right now, Failstate weighs in at 74,894 words. That means I've added 14,216 words to the manuscript this week.

Whoa. I hadn't realized it would be that many.

But doing the math reveals my problem. If I were to make my target, I'd only have a little under 6,000 words to work with and that isn't going to happen. One of the big crises of the book is coming up. I still need to resolve several of the loose threads. I have no idea how many more words I'm going to need, but it'll be more than 6,000, that's for sure.

Not that I'm too worried about the project overall. I most likely wandered aimlessly in the first few chapters that can be pared down, maybe even cut. We'll see what happens on the rewrite, but I could maybe get this down to 80,000 words yet.

But it might be a while. Maybe by my birthday? I think a finished first draft would make a great present for myself, don't you?