Several thousand words...

I've been writing more and more recently, so it was encouraging to see an article I submitted last year finally make it into print. A feature piece on stock photography, it appears in the March issue of Digital SLR User and runs for 4 pages (they gave my pictures a lot of space). Finding it was a joy - I'd just arrived at London Waterloo for a stupidly-early meeting in Farringdon and, staggering blearily through WHSmith, came across the magazine just as it went onto the shelf. The pleasure almost made-up for having to be on a train before dawn. Almost.

On the subject of writing, it's probably worth mentioning the book I'm working on. What started as an exercise for my creative writing class has now begun to gather momentum of its own. I'm reading sections back to the group each week, which is extremely helpful. Treating the whole thing as "homework" has been key - it makes me write regularly.

I'm now doing between 500 and 1000 words each week and - at the great risk of jinxing things - it's actually starting to get a little easier. I've got a good understanding of the main character and what he has to do in the current part of the story (though there may be difficult times ahead when I have to research and write convincingly about police procedures). The process of developing each chapter is beginning to feel natural - ideas > bullet points > draft > edit - and I'm even procrastinating less!

I still wonder about the morality of it all - creating what someone this week refered to as a "charming psycho" is questionable for me, but I guess we'll see how the story feels as it develops. If nothing else, it should prepare me for writing the next book.