Sense the crowd expecting something more

Here’s recent progress on my fin de siecle gothic epistolary about Lizzie Borden fighting Cthulhu with her trusty axe, now with Bonus! ghosts, guilt, girlfriends, arcane science, and an accidental villain who's losing his mind and his humanity in tandem:
Project: Maplecroft
Deadline: October 15, 2013
New words written: 2034
Present total word count: 90,072 words



Things accomplished in fiction: Backfill - I can't send my heroes into battle unarmed, and I somehow tunnel-visioned my way past that part. Derp.

Next up: One more major scene of backfill, and then we move forward again, toward the climax.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jaunts around the neighborhood with the dog; went to Walgreens; went grocery shopping; went to the nursery for more irises; went to Ace for birdseed and whatnot; worked on the yard.

Other: Line edits have landed for Fiddlehead, huzzah! I mean, "huzzah for it is all in process and going smoothly," as opposed to "huzzah look at all this extra work I have to do right as I have family coming into town and a new roof going up."

Yard-Related Other: Took a pruner to the remains of HedgeHenge; don't want to go at it with the electric trimmer yet, for it's still recovering from the huge cut-back earlier this spring. It's looking good, don't get me wrong. So good that it's getting bushy/straggly and needed a gentle trim. After that, I planted another round of irises - some in the naked spots, some here and there for a pop of color. I also relocated a stray set of hostas that magically appeared where they shouldn't be. (Conveniently enough, I have a naked patch in a row of hostas; these fit the bill nicely.) Not sure if they'll survive the move or not, but we'll see how it goes.

Animal-Related Other: I'm afraid there will be no more baby bird pictures, for I went to take a paparazzi peek yesterday, and learned that at least one of the little stinkers can already fly. (She made a beeline for my face, this is how I came to this knowledge.) Mom and dad are still feeding them in the nest for now, but they're getting more adventurous - and this is good! They'll be long gone by the time the roofers get here.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 85,934