Got up at the crack of dawn today. The guys installing the solar panels are all “morning people”. They told us they left home around 6.30am to get here, and they actually seemed cheerful about it. Morning people are an alien species to me. However, forced to rise at such an ungodly hour, here it is not quite 9.30 and I’ve already rewritten the ending to my young adult novel, and have begun this blog. At this rate I should be able to fit in a nice nanna nap before the grandkids arrive this afternoon.

Back to the novel… The lad was finally rescued, at the last moment and is now on his way home. It got rather tense for a while there while I tried to work out how to get him out of the mess he was in. It’s been quite an adventure writing this story. The plot outline I began with (admittedly only a rough one) is rather different to the one at the end. The characters kept doing things I didn’t expect; the story took turns I hadn’t planned; I had to keep rethinking as I went along. It was fun – sometimes deeply frustrating – but most of the time, fun. For a few minutes I didn’t want to type, The End, but then I reminded myself it was really only Part One, so the adventure will continue.

I really like the characters and I’ve developed a particular fondness for the camels. They’re so good-hearted in a blokey sort of way. The story deals with something that is a blight on humanity: the kidnapping of children who are then forced to become child soldiers. However, even though grim things happen, there is still plenty of humour and light. At least, I think so… I hope so…

Next stage: send it to a couple of trusted readers to see if they like it as much as me. I’ll take their feedback and rework the manuscript accordingly, and then it’ll go out into the cosmos to find a home. Meanwhile I’ll begin work on Part Two. It’s all tap, tap, tappity tap. I hope you all have a productive week.