Part Two of the feature is baking in my head for posting in later hours today, but I have something even more important to say.

Book #2 is now up to 7,600 words after five days! Hurray!

Yesterday was the only day I’ve wrote less than 1,000 words on it. I’ve never had a story this long come out this easily. It’s actually shocking me. A Man on a Hill’s first draft was 75,000 words and took nearly two years to write. The third draft is 78,000 words and was finished almost exactly three years after the first draft was started.

If I don’t jinx it and do something stupid, Book #2 is on a much faster track. It’s also not the sort of story I’ve written before. A Man on a Hill basically was an extremely long version of the sort of story I’d been writing forever. I still think it’s the best thing I’ve written to completion so far, though, except for the short story Best Wishes, maybe. But it’s still the sort of brooding tale I’m good at. Let’s cross our fingers for publication!

I’m trying not to get my hopes up about Book #2, since this streak could fail at any minute, but I’ve rarely been this excited.