The Lid Blows Off

The transcription of my first case has just hit the 10,000 word and 10 chapter mark.

Simultaneously.

My word processor's heading function has helped this along with ease. The novel started with me attempting to retrieve a newspaper from the next door neighbour's dog. Picture the Rottweiler from The Omen and pile on the fury.

I realised that a story about a private investigator usually starts with a dead body, so I inserted a couple of chapters before this. The computer didn't even blink, for once.

Actually, it did blink. It blinks at me constantly. Makes my eyes water sometimes.

I started doing my story with a separate file for each chapter so I could keep a few open at once for reference. That's one of the joys having a dual monitor setup. My plan was to create a master document and add all these chapters as subdocuments. I looked up some help sites on the net and didn't find very much in the way of help. Why? Everywhere I looked there was one point of advice for master documents: don't use them.

So I won't.

Sometimes I don't know exactly what drives me to do these things. I've put all this time into building skills in investigation and music and after reading five books on writing I just can't help it.

A novel has to come out of me.

*shrug*