The Third Act Turning Point

O.k. so I haven’t finished the novel yet but I am halfway through Chapter 10 with six more to go. My arms hurt, my head hurts (though that might be more to do with the Sav I drank last night). There is a lot more to go…both in the writing and the drinking.
I have discovered in my quest to ‘write a novel in a week’ the following things:

1) It is not possible to write a full YA novel in 7 days unless you are on speed (even then I’m not too sure…)
2) It helps to have a plan- I had the Wild Cards ‘bible’ that I created for my scriptwriting thesis. This gave me the Wild Cards World; the setting, characters, history and chapter outlines and a goodly amount of dialogue from the scripted episodes.
3) It really helps to have a dedicated (warm) writing space outside of the house and it is amazing what you can do when you have one. Thank you to Ogilvy Advertising http://www.ogilvy.co.nz/ , the marvellous Julie Powell and her team.
5) It is absolutely vital to have financial support to buy you time out of your usual life and work to do it. Where it comes from isn’t important. In my case it has been my family who have done without my income whilst I do this. My partner is an amazing funding body(!)
6) No-one has to give you permission to do this except yourself.
7) Your persistence is the measure of your belief in yourself.

Now go to it. No excuses.