I’ve not been updating my blog that much recently, and there are three main reasons. One of which is that I’m now working at a cinema in Cardiff. Dishing out popcorn and showing people to their seats isn’t terribly exciting, but it’s a job, and the perks such as free tickets are quite nice. The second reason is a rather delightful young lady, who I will hopefully say more about soon, and the third reason is that I’ve been charging away full-steam ahead on my novel, provisionally titled This Darkened World.

I’ve just reached 30,000 words, which takes me almost to the end of the first of three “acts” in the novel (though I suspect the middle section might be a little longer and the final section considerably shorter). A lot of stuff begins to come together at this point, and the current chapter contains all manner of revelations, confrontations and big plot-defining moments, so it’s great fun to write. I had hoped to finish the first act by the end of October, and didn’t quite make that, but having that deadline to work towards was a really helpful motivating factor. I wanted to finish the first section by today, because over the course of November, I’m taking up the NaNoWriMo challenge!

November is National Novel Writing Month, and the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. That works out at slightly under 2,000 words a day average, which is no mean feat. I’ve got friends ready on hand to cheer me on, or beat me with sticks if I start slacking, and it should be a lot of fun. And if all goes well, I should have done a big chunk of the first draft of my second novel.

Paradoxically, however, it might mean that I blog more, because blogging is a good avoidance strategy for work that needs to be done! I’ll probably give a few comments on how it’s going…