The First 10k Words

I said a couple of posts ago that I’d started a new novel and would try to keep up to date with talking about it here – so here goes. This is my progress so far on the novel known only as ‘Dust’.

That works out as about two weeks’ work, so I’m very happy indeed, as my aim is to write about 5k words a week. As for content: I’ve finished five of the first six chapters (six POVs, one chapter for each character), and have about reached the point where I need to take a step back and work out what’s going to happen next. How long that will take, I don’t know, but this was always the danger when I started writing so soon. I simply don’t know what’s going to happen in the middle of the novel, so I can’t keep writing until I at least work out the next step.

As for the rest of my writing: I’m up to the query/synopsis writing stage with my recently edited novel. I’ve never heard of a writer who actually likes this stage, probably because it both looks easy but is actually remarkably difficult, and because it can mean the difference between your novel been accepted and rejected. No pressure, then.

I’ve also submitted one short story this week and sort of finished another. I say ‘sort of’ because this story became far more complicated and baffling than expected in the process of writing it, and I’m not sure what to do with it next. It’s not a good sign when a story confuses even the writer… But I always used to get the best marks in university essays when I wasn’t entirely sure I understood what I’d written!

How is everyone else’s writing going?

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