Numbers and a Random Assortment of Thoughts

One-third through the month, and here are the numbers:

I have written for 21.5 hours in August so far.
I have finished 19 chapters and halfway through chapter 20.
Mender is now slightly over 72,000 words.

And here are the random thoughts:

1) I forgot to factor the Olympics into my writing plan for the month. Don't know if you know this about me, but I am an Olympics freak. It's the only sports thing I really care about, and I watch a ton of the coverage.

2) I had my first dream about a character! I have plenty of dreams that I've incorporated into stories, but this is the first time I've dreamed about an actual character. It was Leopold, out of uniform, sitting on some stone steps and looking even paler than usual.

3) I've been stalking the PitchWars mentors on twitter (like you do), and holy crap, I am so glad I'm old enough to get away with eschewing social media. No fucking wonder so many people I know seem so consumed with crippling anxiety over the state of the world all the time. The human brain was not designed to know every bad thing that happens on the planet in real time.

4) I wasted one of my PitchWars entries, and I'm grumpy about it even though it's 90% my own fault. Basically, I applied to one mentor team, and only scanned the second's mentor's blog post about her PW wish list. The first one was like, "I'll read anything with Romance in it!" and listed all the Sci-Fi books and TV shows as personal favorites. After I submitted, I took a closer look at her co-mentor, who was all "WE WILL ONLY CONSIDER CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE DON'T SEND US YOUR SCI-FI SHIZZ". Like I said, my own fault for shoddy research, but also 10% co-mentor disconnect.

5) Today I was working on a scene that takes place in a graveyard, and I was trying to remember the ways snow accumulates on old gravestones. I thought, "I should just drive to a graveyard and check it out." Then I remembered that in the real world, it's summer.