Word Counts and the Devil

It was another good week on the writing front. Having a minimum word count that's substantial enough to matter is really working for me. For some reason Book 2 is hard to write. It's going slower than it usually does. I always have a high word count in mind that I feel I should meet in a day. It's hard to explain, but this book requires a lower word count. It's taken a while to figure out and accept that. If I was doing this full time, it would all be different, of course.

I don't read a lot of what writers say about writing, but sometimes I catch an interview or a blog. I might read part of a book in which some writer is talking about writing. Word counts vary widely. Some seem impossibly low. I couldn't fathom it before. Now, a light bulb's gone on. It must depend on the type of book and the circumstances. My best day this week was about 1,800 words. The worst was around 11 or 12 hundred. The other days were in between. A "normal" word count for me is 2,000 with some days ranging to 3,000 or so, if there's enough time.

On to other things. I have a ton of YouTube channels I subscribe to and never watch. I have blogs I follow but don't often read unless there's a catchy or useful title. This week one of the blogs had a title that drew me in. It's by a Christian writer. At some point in the blog, the person confessed to not believing in a literal devil. What? Doesn't believe in the devil? How does that work?

In my twenties I hit a particularly rough patch where I started to wonder if God and the devil were really real. It was like God wasn't there. Life seemed not just hard but supernaturally difficult. One day it occurred to me that I believed in the devil. I could find no other explanation for the evil I was facing. But I was still alive, so he had to be restrained somehow. If the devil was real and restrained, then God had to be real, too, and restraining him. In a sense, the devil is proof of God.

How on earth can this person claim to be a Christian and not believe in a literal devil? He's in the news every day! If people don't believe in God, I can understand that. He's not flashy. He doesn't go around showing off. He's lucky to be in the news every week. But the devil is flashy. He does show off. I see his work every, single day without fail.

I kind of suspect that writer, who is neither young nor old, has never truly suffered yet.

On to the U.S elections. I ran across a picture that says it all.