Five thousand words in five days

And before you ask, that title has nothing whatsoever to do with November being the month where writers take up the challenge to write a novel in a month. Or NaNoWr i Mo. My magnum opus isn’t a novel, but I know writers who use November as a motivation tool to keep their own work progressing.

To be honest that aspect didn’t occur to me. The New Zealand trip was always going to be an opportunity to get some more writing done so in my case it was this recent and fairly brief sojourn there, that involved several days where my partner could indulge his love of fly fishing, and where I could use the time to crack on with the book. It worked!

Where we stayed had very limited internet connection – and no WiFi – so that was one distraction out of the way, although the plan was always to get a few thousand words done in this time away from routine life. Even so writing 1000 words a day – or thereabouts – is good going for me. I’m not renowned for being a ‘fast’ writer and there’s always a lot of fiddling, rewriting, editing – call it what you will – before I’m satisfied with the result, and feel able to move on.

There was also an opportunity on an exceptionally wet day, when outdoor activity was definitely off the agenda, to devote to sorting out and captioning photographs. Not only possible ones to include in the book, but also tidying up my photographs generally. And deleting quite a few. Quite a satisfying day really.

But now it’s back to the real world so that momentum is unlikely to be repeated to the same degree, although I intend to try!