I am happy to report to my readers that I was successful in my quest over school vacation to write the entire time! I locked my door and taped a sign to it… FINISHING NOVEL Do not knock…I will not answer and you know what? It worked!

I was able to get 20,000 words written and learned so much about my story. So much happened during the week. The first 2 days were light and fluffy stuff. Fun scenes with the kids in the novel interacting, and by the 3rd day, I was seeing sides of my characters that I had never met before. I even met a new character! That’s right, one was lurking in the shadows of the underground just waiting for me to see him. Now I am going to admit to something I thought I already knew. I remember hearing of writers talking about having their characters speak to them but I thought that was only a fancy way of saying they were using their imaginations. It turns out they meant it literally! I could actually hear (in my mind of course) the different characters interacting with each other.

I have always heard of writers going away to a cabin in the woods to finish a novel and now I know why. The uninterrupted writing is amazing because after writing if you feel like taking a nap you can, then get back up whenever you want even if its at 3am and start writing some more. Also, because you have no interruptions, the flow is NEVER stopping. Constantly with your characters and no one else. The story begins writing itself! I am going to take writing breaks more often.

If you never have and you are a writer you owe it to yourself to take a writing marathon or a break from real people and spend committed time to your story people.