New year, new book…

Hello there! Good grief, it’s been a long time since the last post. I can’t believe we’re over halfway through January already. Then again, that’s what happens when you undertake to write 50,000 words in a month…

Today’s post is, basically, a quick progress report. I have two coldy kids on the sofa and a nice sore throat of my own, so a blog feels like about the most I can manage right now. Hoping that normal service will resume tomorrow!

So, about that 50,000 words… I’ve joined together with a subset of the Fiction Writers Group on Facebook to do JanuWriMo (guess where we got the idea for that one?!). I did this last year, writing two novellas in January, and had a great time, so why not do it again this year?

Only this time I have a new part-time job to throw into the mix. At the end of December I worked out a plan of how many words to write each day, budgeting 3000 for a free day, 1500 for a half-day, 1000 on weekend days, and so on. And having given myself New Year’s Day off, and waited till the kids were back at school, I began. I even chalked up some 4K-plus word counts in the first week.

It must be a truth universally acknowledged that the minute you take on one extra thing, all sorts of other interesting bits and bobs come along. So I’ve taken on a few more tutoring hours (with the extra prep that involves), agreed to co-facilitate an event – no, two events now, with the possibility of more to come, booked onto a training event next week… and I still have 18,000 words to write this month! What was that resolution I made about work-life balance?

I have to say though, the new book is going well. It’s the sequel to A House Of Mirrors, and it already has a provisional title: In Sherlock’s Shadow. My protagonist is antsy, often frustrated, put into all sorts of difficult positions, and as a result I have plenty to work with. I should be passing the halfway point this week (35-37K-ish), and I think that ‘over the hump’ feeling will help a lot. I suspect that this week will be about survival, though, stuffing bursts of writing between the cracks of tutoring, prep, ferrying the kids about, etc. If I don’t have 50,000 words on 31 January it won’t be the end of the world; but being me, I’m going to give it a darn good try. Wish me luck!

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The featured image is muna by Valtteri Mäki, and is shared via Creative Commons license 2.0.