Ploughing on... 32,000 words or so

I have completed chapter nine of Gemma's steampunk-ish* adventures and clocked up the best part of 32,000 words in seven days. Thus I have a feeling I can achieve the target.

But then never say it is done until it is. To batter a Chinese proverb into my own cocked hat: On a journey of 50,000 words, reckon 49,000 to be halfway.

The question is whether hitting the target for Nano produces a novel. It produces a string of words and there is not much time for reflection when you are pounding the keyboard. It is entirely possible I have written up one of the biggest plot holes in the history of literature.

But, the object of the exercise is to make something out of next to nothing in a very short space of time. As I know from the world of work, you can achieve a lot through pressure even if the end product of all that effort is just getting it out of the way and moving on.

I like what I have written so far, and if I had to summarise the plot so far it would be, roughly, disaster and danger interspersed with astonishment and uncertainty. I like Gemma Lawson who plays the lead role, but then I tend to like all my protagonists. Not that I am falling in love, but she's growing and changing in front of me as I bang out the words. It would be fair to say she is a different person to perhaps the one I envisaged I would be writing about on October 31.

As I like to be surprised by what I write, this is entirely good. So now I will press on to at least 50,000 words.

*Steampunk-ish. Ah, yes, note the ish... You see, Gemma was supposed to be in a world of mechanical wonder that never advanced into the age of the internal combustion engine and electricity and with those changes all the things we now take for granted.

Steampunk is a very interesting idea but essentially flawed as progress really never stops. There is no reason that the human spirit should stop looking for new things.

Of course there is a mention of airships and goggles (how could there not be?) but if I was brutally honest they are largely incidentals. I could, almost, say this was a novel set in 1887 or whatever and actually eliminate the idea of inter-city travel by air. In fact, a dramatic scene takes place on a train -- admittedly a steam train -- and if a publishing house said 'lose the steampunk bits' it would be, at this point at least, easy to do. I don't think it would really damage the story line.

I understand as well that my main character is a mountaineer and mountains and climbers were around a bit before the invention of steam power.

But the cover I hacked out to stimulate me uses a picture of a steampunk lass and that's what kick started me in the first place. Oh well, it all may change as the tale moves on. We shall see.