July 31st – 633,266

Several hours of steady rain this morning, and the fact the skies are very grey and overcast has, literally, dampened everybody’s enthusiasm for doing anything. As a consequence, I’ve gone back on what I said yesterday, and hit my 3,088 words before lunchtime rather than have them drag out into mid-afternoon.

So here I now sit, only just shy of 2/3 of the way to my target, and only 7 months into the year. By simple arithmetic that puts me almost exactly one month ahead of schedule (since I shouldn’t, in theory be at this point until the end of August).

That generates a nice warm feeling, and since I’ve somehow managed to get more sleep last night, I’m feeling better than I did.

Now to get on with something else entirely, ah well, no rest, or whatever…

Mind you, thanks to a very successful prank pulled by my son last night, I am going to have to spend a lot of time plotting and then executing the perfect revenge. Are you listening, Russell…? I suspect you’re going to become a minor character in my next book, and I’m going to have to devise a terrible fate for you.

30th July – 631,178

Today I was a good boy, and went back to my main work in progress, hitting 3,402 words. I have noticed one thing about my progress though – I’m getting slower as the challenge goes on. A few months ago I was hitting 3,000+ words before 10am, and even in June I was usually finishing by lunchtime. For the last few weeks, the boot has been well and truly elsewhere, and today I finished at about two thirty. The writing still seems to be coming easily to me, it’s not because I’m getting bored with the plot, or because I’m approaching a block, I’m simply slowing down.

Obviously Marion’s poor health from the fall last week hasn’t helped, keeping my mind busy and necessitating rather more interruptions than I was having to deal with in, say, April, and that may well be having an impact. Of course, the fact I was often getting up very early to write, something I’m not now doing had an effect too.

Overall though I cannot escape the inevitable conclusion – the waters of this challenge are getting thicker and harder to swim through.

July 29th – 627,776

I suppose many of you will make comments along the lines of “he did it again”, and I have to hold my hand up and accept that, yes I did. Today, I managed to write 3,416 words in double quick time on a completely new story idea that I spent a good proportion of the early hours of this morning formulating in my head – instead of sleeping.

There was a very simple reason – our three smoke detectors in the house, all decided to start giving out battery replacement beeps in the aforementioned early hours. Not all at the same time, but all of them during the morning. Quite why they don’t give you a warning during the day time, I don’t know, but they do so at night – I guess it’s something to do with the temperature. So every hour or so, I was being disturbed by a persistent beep, every three or four minutes, until I’d get up and take the battery out of it, then go back to bed, only for it to repeat with the next one.

Since I couldn’t get back to sleep, my mind started working, and sleep became an even more remote possibility, and at some point my brain switched from frustration mode, into creative one, and bingo a complete story dropped into my head. By this morning I had, names, location, occupations, characters, appearances even wardrobe details in my head so it was one of those stories that just cried out “launch”.

Three thousand four hundred odd words later, the story is launched, and I can honestly say I think it’s got the legs to convert into a well-rounded novel. For once, if the story pans out at the right length, I can’t see a sequel to it, at all. Never mind, by the time I do get round to getting back to it, I’ll probably have a different thought pattern.

 

July 28th – 623,360

Well, after thunderstorms earlier in the week, today we had rather more than just a breeze, so between the two my father’s new conservatory roof got a workout. Guess what? It leaked, and it rattled. Admittedly it only leaked when the rain was at its heaviest, but since it needed doing, this morning was the time it got done.

I hate heights, working up a ladder doesn’t even get close to being on my top ten list of favourite pastimes, it’s way down toward the bottom of the overall list too. Still we removed the panel we’d left loosest, just for this purpose and redid the sealant at the side wall, then when we put the panel back we used more screws this time. So far so good, but of course, it hasn’t rained yet so we’ll see. At least it’s not rattling around in the wind, so that’s a good sign.

My writing time was of course, somewhat interrupted by the physical activity, so I only just managed to get the minimum done, hitting 3,157 words taking me to the 623k mark. So, that’s two ticks on the to do list.

July 27th – 620,203

Well, I suppose a poetic image would be me kicking the 620k barrier to one side and striding through into the new section of the challenge, but truth be told, I don’t do poetry, and I don’t feel very much like creating poetic imagery.

A good job then that today I’ve been busy crating away a dialogue heavy passage, where the banter of the conversation seeks to conceal the very important decision the leading lady has to make, with the support of the other protagonists. This life changing decision will lead in a totally different direction and is a very heavyweight one to make, yet in the context of the book, it needs to be treated with a veneer of flippancy that prevents the conversation being at odds with the rest of the book.

Having written 3,235 words today, I’m a little concerned the story isn’t where I intended it to be, but I was having so much fun getting the in-jokes between the protagonists and the odd sly double entendre they use to each other correct, I suspect it’ll get a lot of red pen at the editing stage.

Still it can’t get red penned there if it’s not there in the first place though.

Mind you, writing this much complex dialogue isn’t the easiest thing to do, and I have to say I’m cream crackered.

26th July, 616,968.

Well, I finished my writing stint much later in the day today, but I did at least manage to get 3,574 words down, taking me 18 days ahead of schedule.

We’re having a quiet time now, not doing a lot of anything. Marion is still recovering from her fall, her back is sore, but not as bad, and the bruising is starting to show up. We’d have been out and about for sure, because the weather is nice at the moment, although a little breeze would be good just to move the air around.

Still, at least this way, we’re not spending money by going anywhere or buying anything – so there’s one good reason for not complaining about staying at home. I suspect we’ll have a very quiet weekend too, but we’ll see if her back makes a sudden improvement. At least she’s moving a little more freely now, and the new meds seem to be working better – she doesn’t have those disturbing vacant moments anymore, so that is a very good thing.

Ah well, tomorrow I’ll pass 620k all being well, so that’ll be another cause to celebrate.

July 25th – 613,394

I’m trying to work out how I managed to write anything at all today, despite actually getting 3,059 words input through the keyboard. Okay, it helped it was a very dialogue heavy chapter, the conversation setting up the story while at the same time referencing the previous two books in the trilogy, something I find trips off the end of my fingers like dancing letters. I make far more spelling mistakes as I’m writing this kind of scene too, because I’m thinking two or even three sentences ahead of my fingers. By then end of the page it sometimes looks like the entire page is covered in red and blue squiggly lines – although I do stop and correct them at that point.

No, my problem today relates back to last night. As I said Marion had a bad fall a couple of days ago and last night was wincing and almost yelping just trying to get into bed, let alone get comfortable enough to sleep. It’s one of those situations where you can have little impact in terms of help, and that is incredibly frustrating. She did however settle down, and because she found one comfortable position, she stayed in it, throughout the night – again unusual. Her breathing was shallow enough that I couldn’t hear it either, and the combination unnerved my subconscious.

I spent the whole night, lying there, watching and listening for the slightest movement, making sure she was still with me, despite knowing she hadn’t suffered any life-threatening injuries. On the odd occasion I went to sleep for a few minutes, I found myself jerking awake to watch and listen again, and at the same time forcing myself not to touch her, make her jump, cause her pain or wake her up. She is of course, a lot better today, not back to normal yet, but a lot better nevertheless.

As an end result I am totally shattered today, a spent force, with little inclination to do anything – which is how I find it hard to comprehend I hit just over 3k before lunch.

Everything though was snapped into perspective when I saw the horrific images from the train crash in Spain. The trackside image of the actual crash, even if the clip only lasted three seconds, was truly horrible to see. My heart goes out to the victims and their families.