The thing that concerns me most about the whole challenge is the idea that on some days, I work twelve hour shifts, and where I work is 34 miles from my house, so it's an hour each way, then 12 hours on shift (and it's a very busy call centre), which leaves me with particularly little time to write and keep the count up. The solution may be to simply do 7000 words a day on each of the days I have off, which is fine till you get to weeks like this one, where you do an additional twelve hour shift on the back of your existing four shifts, and then go to see your parents in the evening for new year and then find out that the new series of Sherlock is airing on that evening (Damn you BBC One). What I'm asking everyone for is to bear with me if on Saturdays and Sundays my update is either late or absent, I'm good for the words, just bear with me :)
However, it does give me an interesting point to start day one of the challenge on, and that is what do you do when the stories you're working on run out, as has clearly occurred in the first episode of the latest Sherlock. On the one hand, those you've been writing for previously have enjoyed the older things, but sooner or later, you have to come up with something new. Thus Sherlock returns from the dead, with an initial sequence straight out of Mission Impossible and then a whole series of individual scenes where Sherlock proceeds to make a T*** out of himself with no regard for any of those around him. I understand that as a high functioning sociopath, he'd have little to no regard for those around him, but the point of the first two series was that he was slowly coming out of that (because as we all know sociopathy wears off.....), and for it to turn into a slightly slapstick set of sketches before getting into the swing of things does suggest that perhaps the show may have jumped the shark...
I do hope not, because I really, really, liked the first two series and the serious nature of what went on in them was extremely well done. It could be because Benedict Cumberbatch is significantly more mainstream than he was in the last series, and because he plays a Magnificent Bastard so well, it blurs the line slightly between characters.
To the business of writing, I started on something a short while ago, and the initial chapter will not count towards the million, but I intend to continue writing it on a daily basis and those words will certainly count. Comments and feedback are appreciated, and it's the next post after this.
This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire and Goodnight England, Wherever you are...
