Last 10,000 words in one weekend

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one Balzac

This weekend, with a Sunday-night writing deadline looming over me, I've added more than 10,000 words to my manuscript.

This comprises a HUGE new element to the Queen Anne book, running right through from the start to the end. An element that I first dreamed up over a cup of green tea with Steve Chapman, about two years ago, but which I simply didn't even bother to start writing until the last minute.

(Being a journalist for all those years has made me into an absolute adrenaline junkie.)

As I type this, I've still got a few hundred words to write. (Writing this blog post is my little break from writing that.)

The great thing is how it feels: easy, like I'm flying a plane in to land, and everything is going exactly how I want it to go, even though I don't have a clue how to do it. I'm typing, but I'm also just watching myself typing, as if it was happening to somebody else.

Oh boy. I love writing when it's like this.

Postscript: It's funny. While I was doing that writing I was totally in the zone. I loved it. I thought it was marvellous, in places. And as soon as I sent it in, for others to read, I started to think… Oh DEAR. Perhaps that's always the way: as soon as we take any kind of risk, the gremlins appear.