Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1440 | This month: 1932 Finished the first draft of the Jupiter story yesterday morning, huzzah! I read it to Kate and I think it works well. It’s also almost 6000 words. I wanted 3000. I think I can trim it by as much as 10% (600 words) but there’s no way it’s getting much below 5000 in its current form. Oh well. At least it’s a good story, and if it’s too long for Cosmic Tales of the Far Future I think it’s got a good shot at Analog. The current title is “The True Story of Merganther’s Drive”, which is a pretty good title but, unfortunately, isn’t quite accurate (the facts of Merganther’s Drive are never in question within the story, only the facts about this one particular photograph). I think I’m going to fall back to “Interview with the Photographer”. Now I have to decide whether to have it critiqued, or just send it straight to the editor. I’m leaning toward the latter. Ponder ponder ponder. Tomorrow I will get back to work on the novel.