On 28^th February I posted a piece about the start of a new novel. I’ve now reached, and even passed, a sort of landmark on the road to completion of the story. I’m up to page 125, 48,079 words in total, which is probably a halfway mark for the book. Of course, there’ll be changes to come. I’ll both add and subtract words from the raw first draft when I begin the editing process. But I feel I’m halfway through creation of the story. I’ve normally written books at an average rate of 1,000 words a day. But this has been faster, so far. 48,000 words in 26 days averages 1846 a day. Is the story so desperate to get out that it’s moving me forward at pace? Another 48,000 at the same pace would take me to 21^st April. That’s a little over two weeks before my 75^th birthday, for which I intend to spend some time away from the keyboard, so a break around then would be quite fortuitous.

I always leave a space between initial creation and the editing process to allow the story to mature in the dark recesses of my mind before re-examining it for content first, then consistency of characters and events, language quality next, and finally grammar, before I set it before my beta readers for their comments and inevitable corrections.

Watch this space for further updates.