Dear Reader 📚 31,000 words written in Q4!

Worked in finance for 18 years, and I still think of a year in quarters...

Basically, I added about 31,000 words to my manuscript in October, November and December 2025. This got me to 84,000 words and to the end of the first draft of Floodline. 🤩

The only proof I can share for now is this picture of how I tracked my progress —- Hank Phillippi Ryan shared this as one of her tracking / reward tools and I borrowed it ❤️. You get one smiley face for every 1,000 words completed ⤵️

I will also share what I did after I finished:

✅ Downloaded everything to Word (originally written in Google docs)

✅ Solid spell- and grammar checked

✅ Asked AI (I prefer Claude) for a full plot and pacing check, and realized I still have mountains to climb 🏔️

Finding the joy in the process, much like it is to actually climb a mountain, you take one step after another, pause when you need to, then take another step after another, pause ….

Floodline takes place over the 8 days leading up to Hurricane Sandy hitting New York City on Monday, October 29, 2012.

Today, I finished draft #3 of Day 1. I did not read it again, but will begin with Day 2’s revision instead.

My goal is to do this until I finish all 8 days and have a solid Draft #3 in front of me.

Then I will read the whole thing.

And finally, I will write the one POV that is still missing in my story.

That of Water… 💧🌊💦