Excitement & Frustration

I'm incredibly excited and frustrated today.

Excited why?

Because I had a great run of writing on Hero Go Home this afternoon. I wrote several scenes, something like 3-4ooo words maybe, which is huge for me. I have great momentum that I plan to continue into tomorrow, where I hope to bite a great big chunk out of the Act II climax.

So frustrated why?

Word count. I'm still only at like 38,000 words, and I don't envision this climax running much more than 5,000. So I finish Act II at something under 45,000 words, and then I write another 20,000 or so for Act III and then I'm basically done. I may have a few fill-in scenes to write for the earlier parts of the book, but there's also stuff I plan to cut out, which means that the entire book will run somewhere under 65,000 words. Good for a NaNoWriMo book, bad if I want to sell it (which I do).

To sell it, I figure I need at least 85,000 words. I have no idea how I will fill that much extra space without bloating the story insanely. I have a nice, tight storyline right now, and I don't want to kill it with padding.

So I'm basically happy about where I am, but not so happy with where I'm going. Par for the course.

In other stuff, naamah_darling continues to blow me away. I won't give you the link, because I'm not sure how many people she wants reading the whole thing (I'm sure you can find it if you look), but I must quote:

This is a room, recently vacated, where refined men have sat planning a terrible thing. The room is upholstered in leather. A thick carpet covers the floor. Long curtains frame a window that looks out on a moonless night's blackness where the only sign of life is one glowing star low on the horizon. Smoke lingers in the air in feathered layers, along with a trace of perfume risen from someone's naked body. A fire smolders sullenly in the hearth, no more than glowing coals. Empty glasses still fumigate the air with the dregs of a good brandy. The scent of incense is old and a little stale, as though the books crammed onto shelf after shelf are slowly exhaling the odor of vanished incense. The room is warm and almost unbearably close, and thick with the smell of bodies gathered in close cabal. This is not the scent of one man, but of several. They were here, not a minute ago. The chair, this gorgeous leather chair, is still warm. It's really quite comfortable. Sit down and wait. They won't be gone for long.

You know what this is? It's a review. Of what? Perfume. The woman writes better than I do even when she's reviewing perfume. You can imagine how good her stories are.