Word Count, Vol.4:  Over 200k.  I’ve decided to stop counting until I’m finished (I save each chapter in a separate word file for better organization/modularity so it’s a huge pain for me to open em all up, wait for the word counts to load up, then tally everything).

Thanks to All Who Bought Echo!  And BIG THANKS to Melissa, Barbara, Ian, Lorna, [anonymous], Lisa, Meg, Matt, Bobby, F.T., Alice Smith, Leslie Coop, Richard, Shauna, Sydney, Pam, Jessica, Angela, Kiesa, Ross, Keith, Alice, Daina, Daniel, Yolanda, Trace, Books4me and Vince for posting AMAZING reviews on Amazon!!!  Ashley too for the 5 star on Nook!  I’d like to reiterate that leaving a positive review for any author is the equivalent of leaving $100 tip at a restaurant (I know some authors who’d actually pay that much for a good review).  Although I sincerely appreciate any love you leave me on Amazon, please consider leaving a review for ANY author you know, simply as a random act of kindness…because it’ll mean the world to ’em!  (A good place to start are those I’ve listed—a few of them are authors.  Let me know if you want me to put you in touch with ’em and I’ll be more than happy to do so!  And no, you don’t need to have purchased their book to leave a review on Amazon; you simply needed to have used Amazon at one time or another to leave what’s called an “unverified purchase” review.  If you purchased their book at the store or on another eReader, you can still leave a review for them.)

News:  Ugh, I’m probably looking at a rough draft of close to 300k words when all is said and done.  And here’s the thing:  me complaining about that?  That’s pure ego.  When I get under the petty mewling I realize I should be grateful that the story is flowing through me at all, but the ego needles me with expectations like “Publish now, dammit!”  Well too bad Kent-ego!  I’m gonna put my back into it as best I can, do my daily word count, and give the Muse all the room she needs to breathe life into Echo.

Now no spoilers as far as the plot, but I think I can safely say there’s some next-level shiz in this book.  Once I finish drafting, the challenge will be to edit everything down so that the action and pacing smoothly flows from one cool thing to the next, instead of forcing the audience to sift through a bunch of bland BS in order to find a tasty piece of story.  The ending and finale are pretty strong in my mind right now, and I think I can deliver a satisfying conclusion to this series.  Just gotta be patient and meticulous making sure that all the stuff in the middle connects and flows.

Well that’s it for now!  My illustrator Pope Love says he’s pushing for a new Man Child Monday t-shirt illustration update so I’ll throw that up when I get it.  If you’re a writer, I wish you inspired drafting and insightful editing!