30,000 words would’ve been a novella. 40,000 words would’ve been a short novel. (The Great Gatsby is 47,000 words-ish and it’s sold as a novel, not short, and I agree that it’s a novel, period. It’s less about the word count, more about the arc. But then, there can be 200,000-word novels, so I have used “a short novel” for two of my 40,000-word stories before.)
The draft of Way Station 417 has passed the 31,000-word mark, and I’m not sure where it will end. It could very well be that it will cross the 40,000-word mark. I hope it does.
40,000 words is a very nice length. I would like to write at this length more often.