It's fear of god that brought us to that state

Here's today's progress on my poltergeist-plagued hotel horror story, wherein everyone’s favorite steampunk Texas Ranger joins forces with a goth-as-hell gunslinger-turned-padre who may (or may not) have supernatural powers:
Project: Jacaranda
Deadline: March 31, 2014
New words written: 1683 (DRAFT ZERO, Y'ALL)
Present total word count: 41,036



Things accomplished in fiction: I found the end! Things happened, and were duly wrapped up! NO MORE DEATH MARCH. Not on this project, anyway. [:: cues Hallelujah chorus ::] [:: balloons drop from the sky ::]

Darling du jour: "But hell is hot and wet - and we who remain here forever gasp, but never drown..."

Things accomplished in real life: Neighborhood jaunt with dog; some important emails sorted out re: future convention appearances (some established, some tentative).

Other: I told you it'd fall short of the goal - but likewise, I promise that it'll plump up a bit in the rewrites. I've already got another scene or two in mind (and I've put in note-to-self placeholders), but for now the thing is whole and complete, and I need to put it down to let it cool off for a month or so.

Other, and then some: Really, my composition count is about twice what I've cited above ... but I did a crap-ton of pruning/trimming/tweaking on the last couple of chapter segments, and cost myself the word tally. That's okay. Those words weren't the right words, so there was no point in keeping them around. I'll come up with better ones later.

Other, furthermore: Next up - errand running, and over the weekend I start mapping out the Maplecroft follow-up ... which I really should've gotten underway around New Year's. But. ONWARD. UPWARD. SO FORTH.

Number of fiction words so far this year: 33,456