Time's up

Happy New Year all!

So, the deadline for the Terry Pratchett Prize was yesterday - and I just managed to meet it.

It was back on Friday 8 October that I decided to try and finish my science fiction novel in time to enter the competition, at which point 15,000 words were written.

I finally reached the end of the book on Tuesday 28 December (and then spent three more days on a quick edit). I wrote 70,000 words in 81 days - that's 864 words per day on average. My wife stuck a graph on the wall to help me keep track.

Now I know what it takes to get the words out; the next step is to get it published. Being shortlisted (or even winning!) the competition would be a dream come true; failing that, I'll make a go of it on my own. And, meanwhile, I'll get to work on the sequels. :)

It's been an ambition of mine to complete a publishable novel for nearly a decade. Mission complete. (And yet, only just begun...)