No, I didn’t do any work on Dreadnought last week. There was a lot of writer-business-stuff going on, and life just got in the way. Tomorrow, more things are likely to get in the way as I have some running around to do, but I’ll try to keep this a priority. I need to keep this a priority if I’m going to finish a draft by August 1, Lord knows. Lord also knows it’s very likely to run well past 120,000 words (at least for a Draft Zero), and I’ll need to spend some time backtracking. But we shall see.

So here’s today’s progress on the alternate-history battlefield adventure about a widowed nurse from a Confederate hospital aboard a west-bound train pulled by a Union war engine — now with military intrigue, steampunk Texas rangers, undead political separatists, murderous plots, bushwhackers, bandits, sabotage, and epic scenes of mayhem:

Project: Dreadnought
New Words: 5084 (HELLS YEAH)
Present Total Word Count: 74,346 words
Goal: 120,000 words

Things Accomplished in Fiction: Coupler broke, and the train has stopped temporarily in Kansas City; sneaking around ensues; spy activities abound; the Texas Ranger lays out what he knows of the missing Mexican legion to Mercy, who finds the whole thing unbelievable … yet strangely familiar.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Changed Merrimack’s tank; went grocery shopping; did oodles of day-job checking/double-checking; napped on the couch following a big fat dose of pills; woke up with a start and started writing like the wind; now have a sore throat again and am on the verge of getting quite whiny.

Reason for Stopping: 5000 words is just about all I’ve got in me, on any given day — much less a given day when I’ve been sick, and got out of bed around 7:15, and spent the morning working on day-job stuff. I wrote most of that in about 2-1/2 hours, which is some kind of land-speed record for me, I think.