12,557 words on that zombie story. I’m pretty sure I had around 8,000 when I started today.

It’s changed drastically from its original incarnation, though I see echoes of the original tale. In bumping up the zombies, I bumped up the introduction of Tony. He’s ostensibly the male lead, I guess; back in 2006, my heroine, Vibeke, was filching ramen from the third-floor kitchen and Tony confronted her. I’ve had a couple characters stride onstage and just take over stories, but I think the sassy Mr. McKnight is the most memorable. He struts around and spits out his witty one-liners, and he would be fabulous if he weren’t such a pain in the ass.

In bumping up his appearance, though, I ended up adjusting his actual relationship to Vibeke. In the original story, they worked for the same company on different floors, so vaguely knew each other and played the getting-to-know-you game throughout the book. In the new version, they already have a bit of an antagonistic back-and-forth, which actually helps both characters and the story. Funny, the writing process.

Oh, and the undead finally made their appearance. Tony kept his dialogue from the original version: “Just what I need…the living dead.”

It’s still murderously hot in here. Ended up only partially covering Juno, although my bedroom is much cooler than the office.