9th June – 20th June

The manuscript lives! Thanks to those little whizz kids at PC World, who only took three weeks to do the necessary. So now I have the full, latest version – including everything I’ve written in the last month and a bit – in one place.

It’s not a numbers game but, psychologically, it’s gratifying to see the word count going up. Before I picked it up again recently, it stood at under 20,000 words. Now, I’m up to 26,500. Stephen King reckons on about 200,000 words per novel, but I reckon mine’s going to be around the 75,000 mark. But, hey, look at A Clockwork Orange. You could read it in a day but it’s one of the best books ever written.

This weekend, we’ve been away with friends in a caravan park (oh, the glamour). When you’re catching up with mates, one of the first questions is always about your job. I’ve told everyone I’m writing a novel. Apart from making me sound terribly interesting, it’s another way of making it real, of spurring myself on to make it happen.

Perhaps by next year’s caravan jaunt, which we’ve already booked for the first weekend in July 2012, I’ll have that book deal as a 40th birthday present.