Word Count (Today/Total): 2005/34,718
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.5/39.75
Words Left: 15,282
Morale: had to change my plot to prevent someone from getting arrested too early *sigh*.
Written today: Chapter 17 – In Which Sarah Has A Problem

I really must stop simple things like real life facts getting in the way of fun events… oh well. I think it should be still a little spooky. I managed to blow the house fuses just after I’d written the first 250 words which made me feel a bit freaked out, so maybe I was over identifying there a little!

Today, is Readers’ Quiz day. Don’t worry, it’s a nice easy one. I’m intrigued at finding out how most of you visualise the characters – I haven’t put in an awful lot of description, so there should be quite some variation.

So, my question is… if famous Hollywood actors were to portray my characters in a film version of The Funky Mongoose (hey, leave me alone – I can dream!), which actors would you choose?

I’ll start you off. For some reason, I see Ben (Sarah’s creepy ex-boyfriend) as Leonardo DiCaprio. Probably because I’ve recently seen “Catch Me If You Can”, I can picture him as a smooth talking nice guy on the outside, with something more sinister well hidden inside…

Word Count (Today/Total): 2148/32,713
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.25/37.25
Words Left: 17,287
Morale: went out all day, so this was a hard evening slog.
Written today: Chapter 16 – In Which Shirley Has A Shock

Please pardon my terrible use of grammar this chapter, I didn’t have my brain switched on and even I got confused on whether stuff was in the past being remembered or had caught up to the present. My tenses are a little … interesting … in places as a result.

Today is a research plea day, so on your marks, get set, GOOGLE!

What I need to know:

• What are the current stalker laws in this country? I.e. what could a stalker do and completely get away with legally.
• As a corollory, what action by a stalker would push things over the edge enough that the police force would take serious interest.

Thank you for any/all help you can give. See you again tomorrow.

Word Count (Today/Total): 2037/30,565
Hours Written (Today/Total): 1.75/35
Words Left: 19,435
Morale: feeling much better having taken a break
Written today: Chapter 15 – In Which Sue And Peter Go To Torquay

Managed to get back into the saddle today and churn out my 2000 words. I did worry a bit that by skipping yesterday I’d have found it too hard to get back into the story again, but I managed to get it written in record time which is nice as I now have a roast dinner to cook (I really must go and work out all my timings in a minute).

I’m tempted to keep on writing and “catch up” with the writing I didn’t do yesterday, but suspect that’ll just cause me to burn out again, so trying to resist the temptation. I find it so much easier to fit writing into my weekday routine – weekends just aren’t geared up for this. I’m sure most people are the opposite.

Anyway, I thought you’d like to know that not only have I passed the 30k barrier today (think I’ll book myself a haircut as a reward) but I have also got through 61% of the novel. With my day off, my finish date has shifted back to the 26th of November, but still well within the deadline. It takes away some of the flexibility for when we go away next weekend, but I’ll worry about that when we get there.

My average time writing is still just over 2 hours, which is good, although some days it’s taken me as long as 3 hours which becomes a little more life intrusive. I’ve long since given up getting up at 6am to write – with Akra Jr waking up frequently in the night at the moment, i’m just grateful for any extra sleep I can get!

I currently know the plot for the next 3 chapters or so, after that it’s all a bit of a blank. I’m hoping for a flash of inspiration in the very near future (within the next 3 days would be nice!) The end of the story is as much of a mystery to me as it is to you. Still, with ten days more of 2000 words each, I guess it won’t be long before any of us finds out what happens…

Today is a sleep day and an Akra Jr day. This may get extended into a sleep weekend and an Akra Jr weekend. Rest assured I haven’t given up, and more chapters will be appearing soon…

Word Count (Today/Total): 2005/28,528
Hours Written (Today/Total): 3/33.25
Words Left: 21,472
Morale: got a sore throat and feeling bleugh
Written today: Chapter 14 – In Which Peter And Shirley Attend An Important Cocktail Party

Thank you all for your comments yesterday. I’m glad I’m not being too obvious in my plotting at least! Special thanks to valb who has pointed out a major flaw in that I forgot all about one of my carefully prepared characters *gulp*. Oh well, we’ll have to see if she still fits in anywhere or whether she just ends up on the cutting room floor.

Today’s theme is a list of ten, so I thought I’d pick ten things I didn’t know when I started this crazy novelling…

1. If I sit in front of a computer screen long enough, I can actually churn out quite a lot of words.
2. Cbeebies is god’s gift to authors with small children.
3. I need more sleep than this.
4. There’s very little a toddler won’t do for a smartie…
5. … except when you need to get him out of the door in ten minutes.
6. It’s amazing how much time you can waste surfing the web… um … I mean … researching.
7. If I included all my ICQ messages in with my wordcount I could have completed this damn novel by now.
8. There’s a universal law which means that it is a physical impossibility to like your work two days in a row.
9. I actually have some willpower…
10. …but batteries aren’t included.

Word Count (Today/Total): 2164/26,523
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.75/30.25
Words Left: 23,477
Morale: told you it wouldn’t last
Written today: Chapter 13 – In Which Sue Goes To The Abortion Clinic

Gah.

Just couldn’t switch off the internal editor today which kept telling me how godawful it all was and I really should have done some research and got my facts right rather than just plowed ahead planning to fix it all later. Found it so frustrating every time I had to try and make the situation realistic and probably failed horribly. Then I just got some sort of flow going when Akra Jr woke up from his nap which threw me off balance again. Very frustrating when I knew this was going to be a fairly pivotal chapter.

So, lesson learnt. Never ever say to anyone that it’s going well!!

That said, the wordage is done with a bit to spare and I’m now over the half way mark, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

Anyway, the theme for the day is sort of a suggestions from the floor/see how obvious my brain is being. I have fairly specific plans for the next couple of chapters, so it’d be interesting to see if I’ve made some things too obvious or not obvious enough, and even if your ideas are widly different to mine, then it might spark some ideas for subsequent chapters, so guess away!

Please keep the comments coming, you have no idea how encouraging they are and how much they are keeping me going even when all I want to do is throw in the towel.

Word Count (Today/Total): 2002/24,359
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.5/27.5
Words Left: 25,641
Morale: on a high.
Written today: Chapter 12 – In Which Sarah Gets Murdered In A Grizzly Manner … Only Joking… Maybe…

So, here I am. Almost half of the way through my allotted 50,000 words. How am I feeling?

I’m actually feeling pretty good about the whole thing. Suddenly the project seems doable, I *can* write a novel-length piece of fiction. My prose, for a first draft, isn’t as crap as I thought it would be. Best of all, I suddenly had a brainwave last night of how I could tie in several loose ends of plot, make for a good story and almost give the illusion it was preplanned!

Yes, I’m definitely on a high right now. I’m beginning to see why writers put themselves through all that grief, because when things seem to be going well you feel on top of the world. I hope that after November, I’ll be able to keep some sort of regular writing up. I know I need more practice, and I need to hone skills etc, but I’d like to be able to work towards something that has a possibility of being publishable. Maybe it’s a pipe dream. Maybe I’ll never be good enough. At the moment, I’m prepared to risk it, because I am enjoying this feeling of having something that’s completely mine – something I created, I worked hard for, something tangible.

Of course, tomorrow I’ll be wanting to crawl into a hole and die again because my writing is so dire…

Word Count (Today/Total): 2054/22,357
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.25/25
Words Left: 27,643
Morale: fairly good – seemed to go quickly today.
Written today: Chapter 11 – In Which Philip Goes To The Marks’ Home For Sunday Lunch

Had to write in small 15 minute bursts today as I just couldn’t face getting up at 6am as Akra Jr is still waking up lots. Surprisingly as a result, I was a lot more efficient and it seemed to go more quickly. Not terribly happy with how the chapter went, but Philip is feeling a bit of a superfluous character at the moment and I’m resisting temptation to bump him off somehow (I know, I know… evil author).

Anyway, today is reader’s poll day, so make sure you all vote:

What Happens Next?

What are you most looking forward to over the next few chapters? Lots more parachuting bunnies, please, please, please! No, no, no… no distractions, I need to know if Shirley and Daniel ever get it on… You’re all insane! I’m most looking forward to Sarah’s bloody axe murder so that the author doesn’t have to deal with her anymore. Current Results

Word Count (Today/Total): 2027/20,303
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2.5/22.75
Words Left: 29,697
Morale: woot, 20k!
Written today: Chapter 10 – In Which Peter Asks Sue To Keep The Baby

And another chapter bites the dust.

Ladies and gentlemen, the dares day is now CLOSED! I did my best to fit them all in. Firstly, Fluffy’s one legged man on a bicycle singing auld lang syne (she hates me, obviously!):

“Peter! Will you go and sit down!” She snapped. “You’re capable of burning water, I’m NOT letting you loose on these lovely steaks. I’ll deal with it!” She stormed into the kitchen, placing the flowers roughly into the sink and added some water until she’d figured out what she was going to place them in. She glanced back into the other room. Peter was sitting meekly on the sofa, silently staring at the wall. What had got into him all of a sudden? Hell, what had got into her? Was it the hormones? He was probably only trying to impress her, trying to repair the damage from the other night. It was hardly his fault that she was in the sort of mood which meant that nothing he did would impress her at the moment, even if he miraculously produced a one legged man riding a bicycle while singing auld lang syne. What a bizarre image! She shook her head vigorously, trying to shake some sense back into her skull. She was definitely not feeling her usual self.

Because Alan cheated and gave me more than one object for his dare, I chose one of the four to work in, the Polish ballerina:

Peter smiled with relief and from that point on the evening became more relaxed and more like “old times”. Sue found herself gradually forgetting that she had ever worried that their relationship was coming to the end. They cleared the plates away together, sharing banter and quipping jokes and with Sue feeling so exhausted with the pregnancy she felt relieved when Peter suggested they just had a cuddle in front of the TV for the rest of the evening. Not that there was anything on, as usual. They ended up watching a documentary about some Polish ballerina who was starting a new life in the West.

That night she dreamed of pirouetting down Torquay’s beach in a tutu…

Okay, that one was more than tenuous. But I was down to my last 200 words by the time I read that particular dare, so I think I get bonus points for that.

Otherwise, it went quite well today. Very pleased I’ve hit 20k – just need to think of something to give myself as a reward! My favourite passage of the day is:

Peter stood at the doorway looking sheepish, holding a huge bouquet of flowers. “Hello love, these are for you. How are you feeling?”

Sue was a bit taken aback, but took the offered blooms. “More flowers? I’ve still got the ones you brought the other day in a vase. They are lovely though.”

Peter shrugged. “Well, I’d have brought a bottle of wine to go with dinner, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate with you being pregnant and all.”

“Um, Peter… sweetheart. I’m having an abortion. I’m not really staying awake at night worrying about foetal alcohol syndrome.”

Well, I liked it anyway, but then I have a strange sense of humour at the best of times.

While I remember, I have an advance warning for you regarding downtime to this blog which I received today:

This web site will be down from Wed 12 Nov 2003 at 10:00 GMT for around 24 hours so that the servers can be moved to a new location. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you! I will, however, blog that day and just save it for the next day to post. I promise not to use it as an excuse not to write my 2000 words.

Word Count (Today/Total): 2017/18,276
Hours Written (Today/Total): 2/20.25
Words Left: 31,724
Morale: how did that get written?!
Written today: Chapter 9 – In Which Shirley Has Lunch With Daniel

Typical. I give myself the day off and the ideas get going again. I just open the Word document to type in a few paragraphs so I know which way my thoughts were running tomorrow, and before I know it I’ve written 1k. By that point, I thought I may as well finish it, so here you go.

I’ve got Jag’s spray can in:

It made her cross though to see so much litter around and in the pond – floating over by the other end appeared to be a bright purple spray paint canister, bobbing up and down in the slight breeze. No doubt she would see fresh examples of the vandal’s work on her way into town – what possible joy or satisfaction could they achieve from daubing walls and fences with such illegible squiggles?

Any further object dares you lot come up with will make their way into future chapters.

I think I’ll threaten to give myself the week off… just think of the hive of productivity I’d be then!