My goal for today was to bring my manuscript to 14.000 words, which I did… to the exact word. 😉

I’m now 2000 words ahead of schedule, which is doubly excellent because it means I can skip Monday morning’s session and go to the office all day to take care of all sorts of publishing tasks for Ladylit.

This morning’s session did not start well, however. I always use Google’s timer to count down my 30-minutes session but when I googled it before wanting to start… it was gone! It didn’t show up anywhere in the search results. I was very upset for a bit (and proceeded to annoy my wife for a good fifteen minutes) until I got over it, found another online timer, and got cracking. (Writers and their rituals. It’s sacred!)

I’ve also realized that describing this book as ‘chick lit’ may give the wrong impression. I don’t really know how to describe it accurately yet. It’s definitely a romance, with a bit of a fairy tale aspect to it, and it’s also a bit of a romp/comedy. (And the polar opposite of Once In A Lifetime, but more on that later…)

I’ve mostly been sticking to the plot. When I say ‘plot’ though, it’s really no more than one sentence per chapter, so there is a lot of leeway. But the story is definitely still following the direction I have planned for it (so far.)

So, all in all a good day today. I’m now going to shut down my writing computer until Tuesday, and start my weekend for real.

Obligatory screen shot of ‘my numbers’…

I’m writing this in a slightly less frazzled state than I was in when I wrote my first blog post about Release The Stars. The first day is always such a huge rush. Today was mostly about bringing my feet back to the ground. (I might have needed that.)

Because today is a public holiday in Hong Kong, I only wrote for half a day. As you’ll see in the table below, I started later than the first day. Partly because I slept later and partly because I re-read the first 3 chapters before continuing. I do this to remember what I wrote exactly, to get back in the swing of things, and to pick out the biggest typos so that I can send a readable version to my wife so she can give me her opinion along the way.

Today the writing didn’t go as smoothly and quickly as last Thursday, but I still managed almost 3000 words, which was my goal for half a day, so no need for concern. (I know exactly how many words I need to write on any given day to be able to finish this and the other first draft I want to write before flying to Europe in… 6 weeks!) (Argh!)

I’m 10.000 words into the story and I can already tell you it’s very ‘chick lit’ (so much banter!) and there have not been any erotic encounters just yet. 😉 More details will follow as I progress…

If you’re wondering what ‘Pomodoro’ stands for, it’s a timer I run for (mostly) 30-minutes long stretches of time before taking a break.

In other news, I have a story out in Ylva Publishing’s brand new lesbian erotica anthology Don’t Be Shy! (I’ll post a snippet soon.)

Ideal May Day reading I would say!

If all goes well, I should be back tomorrow with a quick update. Happy May Day if you have the day off. If you don’t, it’s Friday so hang in there! 😉