I blew through 50,000 words on the first draft of the manuscript for World War 3.2 yesterday. That always feels like a significant milestone and I was pretty happy to see the numbers tick over.
Weirdly enough, I have this thing where I get frustrated when the manuscript reaches 60,000 words. I hold onto that frustration all the way through the 60s until I reach 70,000 words, at which point it feels like I can see the end of the book even if I'm aiming for at least 120K words, which I am with WW 3.2.
I think it comes from all the cricket I played and watched as a kid. Getting a half-century as a batsman was a big deal. But getting out in the 60s felt kind of bogus. Like, why did you even bother turning up? Getting out in the 70s, however, was just bad luck because you were so close to getting the ton.
I honestly think that there is some kind of neural network mapped onto my brain that has me transfer those feelings from cricket to writing. I will hit that 60,000-word mark at some point in the next week or so, and I know I’ll be grumpy as hell until I get through it and into the 70s.