Well, my plans for tripping around the place and meeting people this week have rather fallen through. That’s a shame, but it has given me loads of time for writing. Over the last two days I’ve put down 10,119 words, and almost 7,000 of that was today. That puts my total for the week so far to 19,257. The goal for tomorrow is to get it up to 25,000 - that would be a nice round number for five days’ work.

I’ve eaten lots of fruit and sat by open windows with the sun streaming in, and rather than have loud music blaring through earphones I’ve had the radio on, calm and quiet, for a little bit of company in the background.

It has been a whole different experience to sitting in an air conditioned office and trying to write with the sounds of a London street going on behind me. I think that, as much as my determination, is what’s helped me churn out so many words.

And perhaps the lack of interruptions.

With no need to wander down to the lab or across to someone else’s desk, though, all this writing is making my legs ache. Too much sitting still in the same position, mostly, although during last night’s session with Kevin in the gym we both pushed ourselves further than we ever normally do. Perhaps that’s what comes of not being tired out after riding the trains.

I could quite happily do this full time - if I could be sure it would pay the bills. Being a first novel, though, it’s unknown territory.

Have stopped listening to the rolling news. Not only does it distract from the writing, but the talk of a longer than expected war is very depressing, although not entirely surprising.

1. 3,577
   How fantastic to be off work for a day. A week, in fact, but we'll take it one day at a time. It is a...
   
   
2. Cat sitting
   Why did I wake up so early this morning? Not that I'm complaining - it was good to be out of bed and working on...
   
   
3. Journeys
   You forget a lot of things when you take a break from work. You forget that you didn't have to go back to the office...