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Chapter 4 is kicking my butt. Metaphorically. Though I suppose I could arrange a contraption for it to do so physically. But then I'd feel like I was goofing off.

At this point chapter 3 is already halfway up, and I feel as though I have precious little to show for future updates. Add to it my usual doubts and fears about whether the work I've already done is up to standard, and you can see how I might be a little nervous.

Today is Father's Day, so if you are a father, or if you have a father, make sure to celebrate in an appropriate way. I spent all of yesterday moving wooden debris out of one house and carrying various things up from the basement of another and scrubbing floors and wiping down surfaces. The latter looks and feels a lot cleaner, but there's much to do and I'm already feeling exhausted.

Posting these stats is gonna put me in the mood to get back to work. It's also gonna make me cringe a bit. Here goes:

Time elapsed since comic debut (1/1/2009): 171 days.
Pages posted: 72.
Average days per page: 2.38.

Time elapsed since start of work (10/26/2008): 238 days.
Pages planned: 289 (39.5%) (0.82 days per page)
Pages sketched: 115 (15.7%) (2.07)
Pages drawn: 113 (15.4%) (2.11)
Pages complete: 94 (12.8%) (2.53)
Pages posted: 72 (9.8%)

Days per page has dropped again, both because I've been updating 3 times per week and because I've had several multi-page updates for chapter 3.
Number of pages planned hasn't increased. No mystery there.
Pages sketched hasn't increased, same reason.
Pages drawn increased by 17. Pages completed increased by 6.

I typically consider each of the four steps (planning, sketching, drawing, and completing) to be roughly equal in terms of what goes into them, be it creativity, time, or mechanical labor. In that sense, this work is comprised of roughly 3,000 total "units"… of which in the past month I've processed 23, or less than 1 percent. Obviously it can't continue at this pace, or the work would take another 100 months to complete, which is around double what I was aiming for.

So we'll be coming to a moment of truth, dear reader, roughly 4 weeks from now, when chapter 3 ends and chapter 4 has to start going up. You shouldn't see any interruption, of course, since the first third of it is ready and waiting.

But nonetheless, wish me luck.