Friday, 22 March 2019

Writing Book Ten: Part Eleven - We Have a Title!

I'm keeping a diary of the writing process of Book 10, from the first words to publication.



Do you remember this snippet from my last entry?


Obviously, I made a big mistake. You should never say that something is going well unless a spanner gets thrown into the works, because guess what? A spanner is going to get chucked in there at some point, probably within days or even hours of the statement. That's just the way life works, I'm afraid, and touching wood makes no difference whatsoever.

So, I had a bit of a spanner in the works last week. It was nothing major - just some pesky germs that had me feeling extremely sorry for myself as I lay on the sofa, binge-watching After Life on Netflix and clearing some space on the Sky box - but it meant I didn't write for a few days. Luckily, I was slightly ahead of my word count schedule so I haven't fallen behind. In fact, I managed to reach a mega milestone this week - the 80k mark!



I'm so pleased to have reached this point as it means I'm getting so close to having a finished draft. I still have a good chunk to write, but I'm getting there. And there's more good news as Book 10 finally has a title! From now on, Book 10 will be known as...

The Accidental Life Swap.

What do you think?








Monday, 4 March 2019

Writing Book Ten: Part Ten - Limited Time

I'm keeping a diary of the writing process of Book 10, from the first words to publication.



It's been a bit tricky finding the time to write over the past couple of weeks. We had half-term, which obviously poses a challenge, but I was determined to keep up with my usual writing goal of 5k per week as I didn't want to fall behind. I've found writing this book to be the pleasure writing used to be before deadlines kicked in and made some of the books a blur of panicked rushing, and this is mostly down to being able to take the pressure off with a lower word count aim for each week. So I didn't want to shatter this more relaxed state of writing by having to play catch up.



Luckily, I was able to - just about - meet my goal and keep myself on track (I had 39 words to spare!) so it made going into what I knew would be another tricky week less stressful. My home life created a bit of a spanner in the works last week, with four medical appointments booked in for the same week. None of them were for me but I needed to be there, so it meant my writing took a bit of a backseat (as it should, I may add).



Again, I scraped by, reaching my goal and keeping myself on track. I'm now at the 70,000 words mark, so The End is almost within reach. My deadline is 15th April, which is six weeks away, and the book will fall between 80-90,000 words, so unless a great big spanner gets chucked into the works (touch wood it doesn't) then I should be able to meet the deadline without the major panic I sometimes feel!