Derailed

Hello all, apologies for the unexpected hiatus, this was caused by having an excessive amount of things to do and people to see for the past few weeks.  I know you've all missed out on my poorly punctuated onanistic ramblings but you should be pleased to hear that I'm in the process of alienating all of my friends and family so I should have a lot more time to sit alone and write.  

Whilst I was out and about not writing I had one of the weirdest train journeys of my life.  It was a Friday night and I was travelling to see my girlfriend on the 17:15 train from Leeds.  The train was as packed as a cattle truck and I found myself crammed into the luggage compartment behind the driver's cabin with about a dozen other commuters.  About fifteen minutes into the journey the train pulled to a halt, I assumed we were just pulling into a station but when I looked out of the window all I could see was a lonely patch of woodland that surrounded the train tracks on all sides.  Then the cabin door opened and the driver emerged.  He looked sheepish and confused as he said "I'm very sorry but I think we're lost."  

Until then I didn't think trains could get lost, I assumed they just followed the rails.  Now I think about it I realise one of the junctions on the tracks must have been set wrong or maybe there was something the matter with "the points" but on that evening, as I watched a confused train drivers climb onto the tracks and glance around frantically, trying to work out where he'd driven to all I could think was "Oh great, we've been whisked away to the world of the bloody faeries."  I had visions of my girlfriend waiting at the plat form for hours before asking a passer by (probably Rod Sterling or Vincent Price) when the 17:15 from Leeds arrived only to be told "there's no 17:15 from Leeds my dear, not since that crash where everyone died 10 years ago tonight!" Fortunately I don't live in a predictable urban legend so rather than never being seen again I just had to put up with a ten minute delay, but I quite like the idea of a phantom train that leaves it's passengers stranded somewhere unnatural, I might write something inspired by that journey one day if I can think of an approach that isn't a massive cliché.

The novel currently stands at 35,488 words or 47.3% of my target, although I'm a lot further than half way through the plot as I'm currently ripping what's left of my hair out trying to structure the ending.  My original plan was to have a complete draft done by mid April, but I'm probably going to have to move that goal post.  Now my plan is to finish the skeleton of the story (probably about 45,000-50,000 words) by the 19th of April and flesh this out into a full, functioning first draft by the end of May.  I'm really excited by what I'm writing at the moment as the book's various plots and sub plots are pulling together and shit's blowing up all over the place.  Come back next week to see if I hit 40,000 words.