Today’s stats for the noir fable with warring factions, score-keeping ghosts, supernatural animal testing on an industrial scale, survivors with grudges, a mysterious ex-clergyman who lies exquisitely, and a vampire who wakes up cranky from his 100-year nap:

Project: Awake Into Darkness
New Year’s Resolution Status: Good.
New Words Written Since Yesterday: 4193
Present Total Word Count: 24,934 words
Goal: 100,000 words by July 1.

Things Accomplished in Fiction: Showed part of an insidious plot; made part of a separate insidious plot; got somebody all bit up; answered a few questions; asked a bunch more.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Yet more combing of Fathom line edits, which I hope to have finished by Sunday evening, but we’ll see; waited out yet more closet/ceiling work; cleaned house a little; changed Howard’s tank for it had gotten all manky; drove out to pet store for more kibble for the kitty plus fresh plants for Howard’s aforementioned tank cleaning.

Reason for Stopping: I’m very, very tired. I feel like I’m sketching this book out; I’m doing a bit of cannibalizing from the original manuscript — which is quite old, but as I mentioned before, structurally savable, sort of — and when I’m tired, I cannibalize too much and don’t do enough new work/new content/new writing to repair/restore the old. I just end up reading on the old manuscript and I don’t even really pay attention to it. This is not sufficient for progress’s sake.

Total Fiction Words Composed in 2008: 85,696