How I did

I am magically at 80,000 words this week…I say magically because I have no idea how I got almost 10,000 words up from where I left off when I went on holiday, and the story hasn’t advanced one iota past the scene I left it at either. Weird. I guess all that innocent-seeming back-filling added some words after all.

Going on holiday in the middle of writing can be quite dangerous as it means you lose momentum; you get out of the sit-down habit and forget where you were up to. While I did plan to do some plotting and character development while I was away, mostly I just wrote little notes along the lines of ‘fix such-and-such’.

It’s also dangerous to do that – go back and fix such-and-such. You’re much, much, MUCH, better off making a note of it and just keeping on going, and getting it on the edit/re-write. However, in this case, because I had been away from the story for over two weeks, going back and adding in a few simple changes eased me back into the story.

As I said, the story didn’t advance past the scene I was stuck at before I left, so it might seem like ‘easing back in’ wasn’t exactly useful. However, I’ve worked through the problem I was having, so this week I should be back on track and aiming for 100,000 words (total, not for the week…). Only a few more weeks, and I’ll have Simon’s storyline finished.

And finally! finally! Lily’s storyline characters are starting to talk to me. Took her long enough.