He was dressed to thrill wherever he went

Here's recent progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 4327 (middling)
Present total word count: 78,029 words





Things accomplished in real life: Daily jogs with the dog though I've been bad and skipped the yoga; emails with agent and editor; went to lunch with a couple of old friends who are in town from Scotland; ran into some other, unrelated old friends from when we lived here last, and hung out in the evening; cleaned house; paid particular attention to my bathroom, which had become a disaster area; did tech tests with the nice folks from Sword and Laser for an interview on Tuesday.

Other: Wrote most of those words today, natch. So this is a good single-day total, but a mediocre 2-day. And right now, I just can't pat myself on the back for having one good day. I need a serious daily tally to make deadline on this bad-boy. On the upshot, the closer I get to the end, the faster I tend to write.

Bonus Other: I removed the "things accomplished in fiction" bit because from here onward, pretty much everything is spoilery.

Battle Cry: DEATHMARCH AHOY