I reached 50 thousand words on Wednesday which boggled my mind to such a degree that I have decided to take a little break from it. It is, of course, highly unrealistic that I'll have worked this roughest of rough drafts up into something even remotely publishable by the time the Vogel deadline is up (end of May, I think) especially as you can't submit an extract, as I'd originally thought, but the entire, finished thing. But still, it can't hurt to work towards it, I suppose. And it was a worthwhile exercise just to see what can be achieved in a short amount of time, even with a full time job.
We're off to the Grampians this weekend. It is going to rain, apparently, but we are going anyway. I will not take the laptop but I will take waterproof pants.
I'm still madly writing - can't seem to do more than 2000 words a day, but I've been able to keep this going everyday so far. This Thursday it'll be a month. My current word count is around 47 thousand words. It is terrible, of course - so awful that I'm glad I've made it a rule not to read back over it, because if I did I suspect I'd be so disheartened that I'd give up then and there.
I originally thought I'd write for six weeks and end up with around 80 thousands words, but my story is already stretched paper-thin. I think I'll crawl over into 50 thousand, but not much more than that. Then I'll print it out and shove it in a drawer somewhere until I'm brave enough to face it. I'm still questioning fundamental things about it - have I chosen the right tense? Should it be in the first person rather than the third?
Still, it's been an interesting experience and I'm astonished that I've managed to keep at it so consistently for a month. I think the key is to have other things you should be working on (like a freelance job). It's like the allure of housework when there's study to do, perhaps even more so. I think I'd do it again, too - it's good to keep the momentum up.
The painful bit, of course, is going to be going back over it.
