It’s Saturday, the last day of the first week of the Challenge, my private NaNoWriMo clone for January. It’s only coincidental that this is a new year; I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions and this wasn’t one.

Anyway, this is the seventh day of the first week and here, as promised, is my weekly report.

I got off to a pretty good start, writing 3,176 words on the first day. On Day 2, I came close to that with 2,505 words. Production declined after that as financial employment and family duties demanded more time. On the third day I wrote 1,305 words; on the fourth, I managed to push it back up a bit, to 2,447. The fifth day was a busy one and I barely passed the 1K mark with 1,149 words. Friday was almost as bad, with 1,225 words but today, with fewer demands on my time, I managed to write a whopping 2,841 words. My grand total for the first week – 14,648 words. I’m going to have to do better next week if I’m to get this done on schedule.

I took the first chapter to a review session with my old writer’s group and got some excellent suggestions. They thought that I had made a pretty good start. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m happy with the work so far. This book is the first in a series – The Unlikely Detective – about an ordinary young woman, an Indie writer of Romance novels who loves her cats and her psychiatrist husband, not necessarily in that order. When a trainer at her gym is found dead in the sauna, Mabel assumes the responsibility of solving the mystery surrounding the young woman’s sudden death. The working title is The Body in the Sauna.

I intend to do it all myself, again, but I could use a few good readers to help me spot mistakes. Free copies; a mention on my acknowledgements page; my gratitude and commitment to return the favor on demand, that’s what you get in return.

PS: Went back to the file and did a little rewriting that increased today’s word count to 3,109 words and the week’s total to 14,916. Just trying to keep the numbers straight.