Success. Once again, Steph and I proved up to the hideous challenge we set ourselves. We were out of bed before 6 a.m. to get in to town to write. It was a hideous morning, deep black, of course, and pouring with dark rain. Nonetheless, we were out at the bus stop and into town by 7:20. (This presented a minor problem in that the cafe didn't open until 7:30, but we went to the supermarket and I bought some apples.)

Despite the dizzyness of sleep deprivation, we both managed to write. I knocked out 2-3 pages of the kids novel. Steph did at least that of her historical fantasy (which is coming on really well). It's difficult to balance historical detail with plot progression, characterisation, speculative elements and so on in an historical fantasy, but Steph is managing it brilliantly. I'm pleased to have broken through the problem I was having yesterday with my novel. I've added a couple of characters I like, and now things are moving on well again. No doubt I'll come skidding to a halt in a couple of days, but now I've got some decent characters to help me out if necessary.

I'm also making progress on the final polish for my previous kids' novel. This is the third draft, and I'm reading it out loud to see how it flows. It really is amazing how many things you notice when you read something out loud that you never notice otherwise. I've never done this before, but I'm going to do it in future.

#

In other news, I've started a political blog. I want to keep my political rants separate from my writing, because they are separate things to me. I'm not a writer who writes to hammer a message into the reader's head. And I believe (hope) I can write characters and stories that don't just reflect my own views. If you're interested, the political blog will be here.