Yesterday my brother in law defended the thesis he’s been working on for four years, and recieved his doctorate. There was a champagne party last night, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen my sister or her husband so ebulliant. Apparently his external examiner came in, sat down, said, “This is obviously a novel work, it is obviously worthy of a doctorate, now let’s discuss it. Page one!” and grilled Gavin for five and a half hours, a record for DCU doctorate defenses. Anyway, so we’re all completely thrilled and relieved and beaming like fools and clapping Gavin on the back and loudly saying, “Is there a DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?” and things like that. :)
I was utterly wrecked yesterday from staying up too late, and only got 1500 words written. I’m on the downward slope of the middle section, which means I’m on the downward slope of the soon-to-be-a-novel, but I still don’t know how long it’s going to *be*. The first section is exactly 20K long. The second section looks likely to be a bit longer than that, but not *lots* longer. I *think* the final section may be shorter, but I could be desperately wrong about that. It’s very, very strange not knowing how long the book I’m writing is. I’m hoping to crack 50K* this weekend, but that’s, um, about 13K away, so unless something astonishing happens it’s not very likely.
*50K on the novella. I do not expect to complete my Febnowrimo this weekend. :)