The Countdown Has Begun
The final edit is in progress--thank you to everyone for your support!
Today, thanks to the generous support of so many of you, I am using the first of my six Wednesdays to FINISH THE BOOK. The plan is to have something folks can read by the holidays.
So far, creating this time crunch + responsibility to others (what my procrastinating self who doesn't like to do things "just for me" really needs to get this done) is working better than I had hoped. I have the outline done. I have chapters sketched in. I have a plan. Now we whittle it down.
That may not seem like like such a big task until you realize just how much I have prattled on about the farm and its denizens over the last decade.
Below are the word counts for some of the roughed in "chapters" (it's going to be a mix of species + individual creature stories for each chapter with some timeline bridging)...mind you, I made the decision to cut myself off at 2022 when we moved to Minnesota, so NONE of the stories of Gabe or Russell or Mimi's escapades will be in this book. These are just the South Dakota stories.
It's notable that certain animals have triggered more stories than others:
Cletus the Goat: 4,883 words
All other goat stories: 3,066 words (yes, Cletus caused that much chaos)
Lloyd: 3,292 words
All other turkey stories: 2,242 words
Cody the Horse: 3,329 words
All other horse stories: 6,993 words
You can see the general drift here.
Total chapters: 30-35 (I have so many insane sheep and chicken stories that I don't even know what to do with those).
Total words to whittle down (+ add some to to create coherence): 133,427
Away we go!
Anxiously waiting!!