Yes, that’s a big one. I’ll need to do some editing. Huge editing. However, the fact remains I have a completed a draft of A Basic Renovation. It took me nearly a year.  Now, if I add up the real-time I spent on actual writing and exclude housework, employment that brings home pocket money, masters research, futzing around on facebook, emailing Katie-Sue, chatting with RR, JJ, & Kergillian, Starbuckin’ with Swellanor, book store crawling, reading other novels, grocery shopping, meeting the Bud-man’s peanut butter needs, critiquing, meeting crit partners, attending uni, doing uni assignments, and taking care of a 43 year old big boy, I can say I spent under six months on it.

I know his because I decided, since this is part of the master’s project, to make note of every day I wrote, even when I spent 20 min tapping on the keyboard. And it may come as a shock to some of you to know I did the math. Mr Johnson would be so proud. 

Of course, I used a caluclator to check my work, but don’t tell him.

It breaks down like this: I began work on Feb 12, 2007. I wrote mostly on Mondays and Thursdays, with the occasional Saturday, or other weekday, a fews days during the Easter, June & September holidays, and a solid week when Shrinky Dink was off trekking in December.  Then, I had from mid-Jan 2008 (what was left of my school holiday) to last Friday, 8 Feb 2008, to try and power through to the end. I could say I nearly made it to that full one year anniversary date, but the reality is, it was not quite five months of writing. It merely was 147 days.