I reached the 50k word limit back on the 25th November, but it’s taken a couple of days to complete the actual story. I still have to submit the text for validation, but all the spadework is now done.

It feels quite sad not to have it around anymore – I won’t start revising until January at the earliest – but it’s a lot more straightforward a story than Crooked Usage, so is likely to be submitted to an agent/publisher/Amazon sooner.

Leaving Mallingry is going well – it’s day 18 and I have 38,162 words out of the 50,000 so far. On the spur of the moment I invented a woman to be irritating on a sofa and she immediately wormed her way right to the core of the plot, only to be bloodily despatched several chapter later, at the hands of the villain!

Leaving Mallingry is now in progress – on day 8 I have 13,483 words out of the 50,000 so far!