August has been, for many and varied reasons, another slow month. Managed to add about 7,400 words onto the manuscript which, although not a big number, is at least progress and better than zero.

This last month’s culprit has been one section that, in first draft, is only 1,200 words long. Absolute no-brainer most of you would say, just bang it down on paper and it’s done. Well for me it wasn’t so easy, it took three weeks on and off, most of it spent staring into space and playing around with scenarios and dialogue in my head. Why? It’s an inflection point in the novel, a key one at that, where a 14 year old girl turns her back on humanity in favour of an alien race. She’s been subtly maneuvered into it by an alien mentor and many, many pages further on she’ll turn from defector to destructor.

I guess all novels have this, or similar trip-points. Small sections that have a far bigger impact on the work than their size suggests. Hopefully this is the last of them for a while.