Update:
As of 11:59 p.m. on 11/23 I have 28,417 words.

Morale:
I went out to play on Friday night, and then spent the rest of the weekend holed up my apartment, writing, sleeping, and combating what I think was food poisoning.

With more than a third of the way to go and only one week remaining I am, uh...well, I'm not quitting.

Excerpt:

She doesn’t answer; she’s too busy glancing nervously at the package, probably remembering what I gave Owen last Christmas.

"The Iliad?" she said in disbelief when he held it up for everyone to see.

Cynthia kept staring at me with something akin to horror, as if I’d just given Owen a Tickle Me Rattlesnake.

"It’s a new translation, he’ll love it." I tell her with more confidence than I actually feel.

"He’s five."

"So he’ll love it next year." She arches her eyebrows. "Kidding, I’m kidding. He’ll grow into it eventually."

Owen, meanwhile, was carefully turning the pages of his new book. Cynthia noticed that he'd actually cracked the cover, and leapt to take it from him, calling out to me over her shoulder, "Dear God, it’s not illustrated, is it?!"

"Of course not," I assured her with not entirely mock indignation. "What kind of lousy judgment do you think I have?"

So The Iliad sits high on Owen’s bookshelf, far away from my more successful attempts at gift-giving, like Winnie-the-Pooh. "When he can reach it, he can read it," Cynthia declared at the time of shelving.