Novel update: Stopping writing

So, there I was getting along reasonably well with my novel, when I happened upon this, and thought 'What a mighty fine idea that is!'

The idea is for lots of people to all be writing novels, aiming for a word count of 80,000, at the same time, and using the blog as support. As my 'novels' have always come in at a tad under (which is to say, 30,000 under) I thought I would give it a go and see how I get on.

As I've already started, and obviously don't want to cheat, I'm going to stop writing until 14 May, when all the other participants should have written as much as me, and then we can progress together.

It will give me time to do some much-needed research, and to make a timeline of events. I've realised that some events are mentioned/will be mentioned in two different parts of the book, from two different angles, but they obviously have to happen in the same order. Last night, I made a timeline on Excel - currently a blank grid with dates on it, but it will be a timeline soon. I know other writers probably just use notebooks, but - well - I'm a bit of a computer nerd at heart! It's a very smart timeline, and this break will enable me to fill it out properly.

So, all in all, I'm very glad I came across this whole challenge, and I'm really looking forward to seeing if I can write anywhere near 80,000 words.