February 13th – 138,937 words.

I guess tomorrow I’ll pass through the 140,000 word mark and be on course to hit 150,000 by the end of the weekend. Today I scraped past 3000 words, 3,014 to be precise and I’m only part way through the climactic phase of the book. I can’t finish it in another 3,000 words either, so stopping now makes more sense than ploughing on for another hour and leaving it at the real nexus of the story.

Any continuity issues arising from this will be flagged in the margin to be picked up in my first edit pass. It’s now been four weeks since I put aside the first piece I completed as part of this challenge so I need to start thinking about editing that. However, I have another couple of hurdles to clear first, not least among them the steampunk piece I need to have ready for group submission on Friday.

Far from writing this much in the last six weeks, releasing the tension and allowing me to relax into my writing, I find I’m now even more “steamed up” (excuse the crude and feeble link back to the previous paragraph) than before, with four or five pieces competing for my immediate, and they do mean immediate attention. I’m starting to believe in the maxim “write every day” – it’s becoming a habit, one that is fast becoming ingrained, and one which is if anything making it easier.

So, come on, what’s stopping YOU? Get writing, write every day.