25,306! Week 3.

I just about made it into Week 3. The target for Day 15 is 25,006 and I'm a few hundred words above it, by sheer bloody-minded dint of sitting in pubs and graduate centre coffee areas and typing /handscribbling until my back hurt and leaving the family to fend for itself alone at home. What I've written is drivel; words get repeated; I got bored; then I had a little plot idea right at the end of today's session BUT I DID IT. I was 4,000 something words behind this morning but I pulled myself back into the loop by the skin of my bleeding fingernails.

Tonight I'm allowed to read Chris Baty's tips and tricks for Week 3.

We're off to Berlin on Sunday, and then Mannheim, so that's ten days (until almost to the end of my Month!) without my laptop. But the Determined Novelatrix will just have to scribble scribble scribble until her fingers fall off and then transfer something like 20,000 words (!!) all in one wodge onto the computer upon my return.

God. How do real novel writers do this?

Or, because t'family is totally infected with Jack Bauer and 24: 'Let's do this. Patch that intell through to me. I'm going have to shoot and torture you now.'

Also: Team America? What a fucking hoot. Matrix marionette style!