16,508

That's how many words I'm up to. And I have a feeling half of what I wrote yesterday is crap...but it did open up a new avenue for Brendan and change my thoughts about an old friend of his named Colm. Which means reworking part of the ending chapter, but if it works...

This is going to be a long book. And already I'm leery of my factual details -- things like what kids did for fun in 1968 in Derry and how blocked off the border with Ireland was in this one particular area and such -- but those can be changed as need be, especially if I can make it back to Derry for a week to 10 days to dig through the library's archives. My last two trips set the ground work; this time I'll know exactly what it is I need to know and can focus.

And if all goes well, I'll be able to make the trip in January or February, before the tourist season starts. So I'll have to have a solid draft by then.

But I have a feeling it's going to be at least 125K words, and I'll need every day of the month open and easy for me to reach that goal. Guess we'll see what happens...but if that's the case, I'm WAY behind; by the end of today I'd need to be at 24,000 words.