In case I haven't mentioned it before, I have a vast respect for professional novelists. My respect is even vaster (and crunchier!) now.

A concerted effort both yesterday morning and today has found me only a few thousand words richer. I've waded through some painfully tedious exposition that I know I'll have to rewrite or remove later, and now our hero has spent some quality time berating a computer. Maybe that last part is simply me projecting my frustrations into the story.

Anyway, looking at the nuts-and-bolts side of things, my story's word count has climbed to a modest 7,400 words. And now I'm pooped. Time to go outside and play.