Chapter 45: 4,000 Words a Day — Is That Even Possible?
The Duncan House
Adam had made his decision about what to write.
The novel he'd chosen was set against a Western backdrop — Victorian-era steampunk atmosphere, cosmic horror elements drawn from the Lovecraft tradition, exactly the kind of material that American publishers understood and American readers had an appetite for. It wasn't a stretch. It was a natural fit.
Physical publication, not online serialization. It was 1992. The internet as a publishing platform essentially didn't exist yet, and what existed wasn't built for fiction. But American publishing houses were active, copyright protections were solid, and a successfully published book generated royalties indefinitely. That was the model.
He wasn't aiming for literary prestige. He was aiming for enough money to live in New York without constantly calculating whether he could afford groceries.
There was a secondary motivation he wouldn't say out loud to anyone, which was the private amusement of imagining Sheldon and Leonard becoming deeply invested in this fictional universe. Sheldon in particular — the passionate engagement he brought to science fiction, the way he dissected narrative logic, the absolute commitment to accuracy in any fictional system he decided to take seriously. If the world-building held up under that level of scrutiny, it would hold up under anything.
He sharpened his pencil and started writing.
Two hours later, he put the pencil down, rubbed his wrist, and counted the pages.
Less than a thousand words.
He'd expected difficulty. He hadn't quite expected this level of difficulty. The story was completely assembled in his head — every scene, every character beat, the full arc of the narrative. The challenge was that rendering it in clean, readable English prose, hitting the right tone, finding the precise vocabulary that carried both the atmospheric weight and the plot information simultaneously — that was a craft problem, and craft problems didn't resolve just because you knew the destination.
Ten thousand words a day was not happening.
He spent the following week establishing a sustainable rhythm. As his fluency improved, his output increased, but a ceiling emerged around four thousand words per day that proved surprisingly resistant to effort. He'd write until he hit that number, feel the click of completion, and then find himself entirely unwilling to write a single additional word regardless of how much story remained.
He recognized this tendency from his previous life. Once a daily target was reached, motivation evaporated with remarkable speed. The habit had apparently survived the transition between lives.
He accepted it. Four thousand words per day, mornings spent reading Victorian history and atmospheric reference material, afternoons spent with the Lovecraft corpus — not because he needed the plot, but because a novel set in that tradition required genuine familiarity with the source material. If the book succeeded and anyone asked detailed questions, he needed real answers.
He thought about Sheldon and Leonard picking apart narrative inconsistencies and felt the additional motivation.
American publishing worked on full manuscript submissions rather than ongoing serialization. A complete novel of reasonable length could be submitted and evaluated as a whole. At his current pace, two months of summer would produce enough for a first volume. He'd submit it, see what happened, and adjust from there.
If publishing didn't work out, he had a backup. He was approximately as conventionally attractive as a certain Friends cast member who'd built a decent career as a working actor before the show. Extra work, bar shifts, coffee shop hours — flexible, immediate, livable.
He didn't think it would come to that.
Ring ring.
"Adam, it's for you!" Teddy appeared in the doorway with the phone and a particular expression. "It's Juno. And tonight's prom." She raised an eyebrow. "Anything you want to tell me?"
"No," Adam said, taking the phone.
He talked to Juno for a few minutes, confirmed the plan, and hung up.
He sat for a moment, watching the light change outside his window as the afternoon moved toward evening.
For no clear reason, something Barney Stinson had said floated up from the back of his memory — not the fully formed, sharp-suited version he knew from television, but the guy who'd been wandering a New York street with a flyer and a decision to make.
Suit up. Tonight is going to be legendary.
Adam smiled to himself, got up, and started getting dressed.
End of Chapter 45
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