Setting targets for the number of words to write in a day or weekend doesn't always work

I'm not usually one of those authors who set targets for the number of words written in a day or a week but over the weekend I wanted to hit the 10,000 mark of the DI Horton crime novel I'm currently writing, which is number nine in the series. I'm sorry to say I failed but only by about 600 words because other factors intruded on my weekend. I'm not worried though, in fact I'm pleased with how the novel is shaping up and that's more important than a word count, at least it is to me. I've left DI Horton in chapter three interviewing someone and I know where the chapter is heading, which is always helpful! So time to press on with it.

I'm witing the first draft and although I've done some research prior to starting the creative writing process I like to research as I write. This week I need to conduct some further location research, so it's a trip to Old Portsmouth, and the Historic Dockyard where the beginning of this novel is set, whether the location will remain there at the beginning of the novel by the time I come to do revisions who knows. For now I will stop counting words and return to my usual method of writing for at least a couple/few hours every day.

A Killing Coast, the seventh in the DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series is now published in hardcover.

Footsteps on the Shore, the sixth DI Horton is now available in paperback and as an e book.