It was a good day, and I didn't even have to use my AK.

My plan yesterday was to aim for 5,000, and maybe try for 9,000 since I got two rejections in the morning (for those who have recently joined my blog, I add 2,000 to my daily word count goal for every rejection I receive that day). Given the fact that I was just getting back into the swing of things after traveling for a month, I was willing to forgive myself if I didn't make 9,000, but 5,000 was non-negotiable.

By the time I called it a night, I'd written a little over 7,000. A good day, definitely.

I've written the final three chapters of Nine Tenths of the Law, and I'm pleased with the ending. I always write the ending early on because, quite frankly, if your story doesn't have a satisfactory ending, then what's the point? The journey is important, but with a book, the destination has to be worth it. Nothing is more aggravating than reading, following characters through their trials and tribulations, only to have a disappointing ending. I'm always afraid of getting to the end and having someone say "OMG, that sucked!" or "WTF??" or worse still, "So what?"

So, the ending is now written and has passed the stringent compulsory quality assurance test (aka, Scarlett read it and approved), so the rest of the book can safely be writ.

Now, in this blog entry, I discussed why word count goals are important for me, and how those little milestones can sometimes make all the difference in the world. In short, they are the carrot on the end of the stick. By having short term (daily), long term (overall book), and uber long term (annual) word count goals, I have lots of milestones along the way.

Yesterday, this was precisely what carried me through to that 7,000 mark: The first 1,500 wasn't so bad, so what's another 500 to get me to that 2,000 mark? Oh, and that brought me to about 25,000 for the book, but another 2,000 or so will get me to 655,000 for the year. Now I'm almost to 4,000 for the day, so 5,000 is a piece of cake. And 2,000 more will get me to 30,000 for the book and 7,000 for the day, so...

Breaking it up into little goals like that makes all the difference in the world, particularly when I'm tired, jetlagged, and looking for any old excuse to write less. Or not write. I can cut myself slack. The numbers aren't quite so forgiving.

This weekend, given that our message board addiction is unavailable due to maintenance, Scarlett and I are both planning some serious word binges. I'm aiming for 10,000 today and tomorrow, which will put Nine Tenths of the Law past the 50,000 mark. By the end of next week, it'll be done, and I can move on to Behind Closed Doors, the book that's already cutting into my sleep even though I haven't even started it yet.

So, I have, as I'd hoped, gotten my groove back in fairly short order. Now to see if I can knock out 10,000 words and put Nine Tenths of the Law past 40,000...