Rolling Status Report

I’ll keep updating this one post with new info on how the book is going. I’ll try to let you know at least once a week what’s happening.

Still working on the first draft and passed the 12,000 word mark.

So still a ways to go, but work is progressing well. I do have a day job, but I have 2-3 hours most evenings to write, plus weekends.

Wow, so much time has passed and I don’t think I worked on RRVA at all in 2025. Finally got revved up about it again a few weeks ago. The writing is kind of sporadic, but it is getting done.

You can see I’ve bumped up the total word count from 70K to 75K, and may have to bump it up a bit higher. I hit 38K words just with Act 1, and Act 2 will be longer (although Act 3 should be shorter).

I could see it going as high as 90K words, but then it would probably be edited down to 80K. We’ll see. I want to stick with a word count that’s fairly standard for sci-fi, which is 90K to 110K, but I’m not sure if RRVA will end up being seen as a YA novel since the three members of Gothic Moon are teenagers for more than half the book, and YA sci-fi typically caps at 80K.

I know, if I self-publish I can do whatever I want, but I’d rather stay inside the “typical range” for this first book.