I wrote yesterday about my attempt to complete the annual challenge of the National Novel Writing Month, 50,000 words in November. I’m still barely started and think I will fail in my endeavour. However, at last I am making good progress on my next novel, Winterdyke. It is the seventh in my Radwinter series, and has been the most difficult to write.
The main reason I have struggled is that I arrogantly assumed it would be easy; I had taken my main character Thomas out of his everyday situation and busy family life, and dropped him into a country house where there were two mysteries for him to solve, one from the beginning of the twentieth century, one from 2016. I have read so many novels with this very basic premise – a set of individuals, one or more of which is murdered, and the culprit has to be one of the other characters. It is so difficult not to make it boring, to have sufficient action and intrigue in this one enclosed setting.
I have one last chapter to actually finish it but as I seemed stuck I have started to edit what I have, sorting out my mistakes and muddles, slashing the extra words which i can’t help but write when I’m doing a first draft, and tidying up the plot. I am more than half way through and making good progress, so I am feeling a little happier and more confident now. I can’t say when it will be finished, life is entering a busy mode as we have birthdays and parties and Christmas approaching, but I do feel confident now that it actually will be finished!
In case you haven’t caught up with my previous Radwinter novels, here is a link:
Lois Elsden 
50,000 is a lot of words. I couldn’t do it without cut and pasting some of my earlier posts and work. Good Luck!
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Haha!! It is a lot – too many maybe this time round! Thanks for your good wishes!!
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‘War and Peace’ is 590,000 words long and took two years to write so that is only 25,000 words a month. And Tolstoy didn’t have a lap top or spell check!
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That’s a good way of looking at it! Thanks!!
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