Some people get wiser as they age, but all I’ve gotten is more superstitious.  When I comment on how nice it’s been that I haven’t got the flu this year, I fully expect to get the flu–just because I said something about it.  If I’m waiting for something good to happen, I try to distract myself because I know that a watched pot never boils–and a part of me believes that the pot truly will take longer to boil just because I’m watching it!

I can feel it watching me watch it, see, and I know the stubborn little thing will hold back on boiling til I give it some space.  Honest!

So maybe it’s not such a surprise that as I launch myself into my new middle grade writing project, I find myself reluctant to talk about it.  Cause of the possible jinx, you know?  And even though I’m a reasonably educated person with a nice little framed degree and way too high a sense of skepticism to ever fall for such nonsense as jinxes–I still shy away from talking too much about this particular writing project.

Of course, since superstition isn’t a part of my mental identity, I’ll go all rational and tell myself it’s just that I feel the need for a different approach.  That since this novel is so different from the last–written in first person, much shorter, strong on voice and concept rather than quite so much plot–I just want to give myself room to approach it from a different direction.

And you know?  That sounds good!  So forget all that stuff I said above about my regression into superstition, okay?

What I am going to do is post a weekly word count update, with a nifty little updaterthinger, so you guys can cheer me on and keep me motivated.  Cause it’s so much easier to feel I’d better eck out another couple hundred words when I’ll be reporting them somewhere!  And since the novel’s title isn’t quite decided yet and I’ve gone all secretive writer on you, we’ll call it:

The Mysterious Chicken Novel.

Yep, that means it’s about chickens.  Silkies, to be exact, though I’m pretty sure the actual birds wouldn’t recognize themselves in what I’ve done.

Here’s the word counter, outfitted with my teeny tiny end goal of 25k words cause this is a shorter middle grade.

And here’s a commemorative pic of our new silkie chick, cause you knew I couldn’t resist posting a chick pic!  To me he looks like an Ewok so we’ve named him Wicket. 🙂

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