Among other things, one of my general goals is to have an installment be in the 3000-5000 word range. A few are less, a couple have been significantly more. PS: New Year’s Eve was originally over 11,000 before it got split in half a year ago. That’s just a little much for one sitting.
After a lot of back and forth I’ve gone with my original idea. The alternative route wasn’t really panning out as I got further into it, but it did help me to find a better flow for this particular path.