Word Count Wednesday

So this is how critique group went last night.

My critique partners sat across from me so I was alone on one side of the table.  And then one of them said, "Oh good, we're on teams."

Not a great way to start when it's *my* manuscript chapters being critiqued.  It's quite scary actually.  They even looked at me meanly.  Narrowed eyes, red pens tapping on the table.  A little shiver of fear went through me.

I read the first paragraph and got a smiley face, so that put me at ease.  Maybe it won't be so bad, I thought to myself.  No.  They were just luring me in so they could SMACK ME DOWN.  See all these 'ing' words, Julie?  BAD.  "ING ING ING Say it.  ING is bad."  And look at this here.  INFO-DUMPY.  All I read is wahwahwahwhawahwah, like on Charlie Brown when the teacher is speaking.  FIX THAT.  Say it with me, Julie.  INFO DUMPS ARE BAD.  And then they made bad faces and pointed their red pens at me.  That's when I cried while they laughed---horrible evil laughs.

And when I stopped crying, they gave me some banana bread and told me to go home and don't ever bring crap like that again.

Oh all right, it wasn't quite like that.  They tried to be all nice with the, "don't hate me when I say this, but it was a little info dumpy here.  I think you need more tension.  But it's good.  I really like it!"

They couldn't trick me though, I knew what they were really thinking.  (Although the part about the banana bread was true and it was really good even though I knew it was just a treat to assuage their guilty consciences for being mean to me.)

(All right they weren't mean to me, except when they threw chocolate chips at me and called me a baby.)

(Okay, they didn't call me a baby, but they did throw chocolate chips at me.)

(It was one of those nights where you just had to be there, you know?  Maybe I'll just leave it at that.)

So here I am trying to fix all the bad spots they found.  My word count will be high because I am motivated and awesome.  Maybe I'll even flip my hair and say I'm worth it today just to affirm that to myself.

How did your word count go this week?