• 15:25 My reading has been moved to the Doll Room. Irony. #
• 18:59 Trying to get some writing in before heading downstairs to be social. #
• 21:23 Starting the timer for a fifteen minute writing burst. #
• 21:45 433 words.Yes, I’m doing NaNo. A fragment. “The cinema had a magicker who walked the aisle swinging his thurible to keep it cool.. #
• 22:02 At 1028 words. Harloyd poured the excess rubber dust into a glassine envelope, in case he needed it later. “I’ll bear that in mind.” #

I’m making good progress, I think. I just finished Chapter 8 and am slicing through Chapter 9. Tally ho!

Okay folks, here are the first thirteen lines of my NaNo novel, Good Housekeeping. If you’d like to read the whole chapter, I’m happy to send it. Just drop me a line.

Chapter 1

Grace’s cat was sitting on her face. His purr sounded as if a mixer were stirring gravel in her ear. She shoved the cat away, ignoring Malkin’s mew of protest. Rolling onto her stomach, she burrowed under the pillow as he immediately began walking up her spine. This was why she had stopped sleeping with her door open, even when Jacques was out of town. It took another moment for her brain to process the obvious thought.

Her bedroom door was open.

Something shattered on the floor. Grace froze, suddenly and completely awake. The lamp. If the cat was on her back, then what had knocked over the lamp?

There were things in her house that regularly went bump in the night–was this one of them? Or had the burglar come back?

I only wrote 1746 words today, but I made several good discoveries. At one point when Grace’s daughter, Cassandra, is grousing about something she thinks “a bear like her father,” and I suddenly realized that Grace met her husband while he was an enchanted bear.

I don’t know if it will continue to make sense tomorrow, but at the moment it opens up all sorts of new opportunities for me. I’m very excited.

I say only 1746, but really I just need to do 1700 a day, so I’m right on track.

Total new Word count: 3756