Word Count: 49,007

This has been a most productive and exciting day. Over 5,000 words. I’ve tried to make them sensible words – and I hope the story hangs together in a pleasing manner. But where did they come from? I’ve no idea – there’s obviously a well of words inside me and I hope it never dries up.

Tom Clancy once posed the question, The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. There can be no unexplained happenings and certainly no coincidences, because fiction abhors a coincidence, just as nature abhors a vacuum.

Word Count: 43,712

On the final stretch now and the words have to keep coming. Where do I find them?

William Shakespeare knew a thing or two about writing. In Act 2, scene 2 of Hamlet, our eponymous hero utters the immortal phrase, ‘Words, words, words.’ He’s obviously done this challenge, too.

Ray Bradbury said, ‘You fail only if you stop writing.’

With this kind of pressure, I can’t possibly stop until it’s over. Only 5 more days and 6,288 words ….

Word Count: 42,393

I’m creeping forward, word by word. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth, and just as painful.

‘A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,’ said Virginia Woolf. I’ve got the room, what I need now is enough money to give up work and concentrate on writing.

Actually, what I really need is a rich benefactor.