Last night, I completed the first draft of The Enemy Within, with some regret. Of all the characters I've written to date, Bobby Upton has to be my favorite. I hated having to finish his story and move on to another character's, but I have a schedule to keep. And I have a sneaky feeling Bobby will pop up in future stories, so it's not a forever goodbye.

After I'd typed the last word ("trusted"), I started counting and realized I'd hit the 250,000-written-words mark since I began writing fiction in November 2013, just in first drafts. Here's how it breaks down in first draft lengths:

--The Prophecy, 68,895
--Light's Bane, 78,934
--The Enemy Within, 71,159
--A Higher Purpose, 30,657
--Shorter stories and WIP, 21,000

Of course, by the time I'm finish editing and revising, the stories are longer or shorter, depending on what needs to be done to them. If I follow my official writing schedule, I'll also complete two full-length novels, two novellas, and several shorter works this year, which might be enough to punt me over the half-million-words-written mark by the end of the year. Not bad, eh?