My child caught a cold, and then so did the entire household. But thankfully I managed to stick with writing, through doctor's appointments and runny noses. I managed to put in 1500 more words. Manuscript stands at 56,400 words now.
I chose to go straight into the failed robbery that Hem is committing, quickly explain how he got there, and then go forward from there to when everything fails, and he realizes he has to do something more drastic to make progress - like learn to make bombs in Europe.
Developing the scene has been fun. I first thought I’d have him get stuck in a chimney. But then I decided to throw a baby into the mix. He goes to rob the house of a woman whose husband is away, but her baby sees their lookout in a tree and cries. The baby’s nurse keeps calm and pretends everything is normal for the sake of the children, but indicates to the intruders that she knows they are there, and she will not hesitate to do what it takes to protect the children and her employers’ belongings. Hem and his friends do not want to hurt anyone, or even inconvenience a good-hearted person, and they leave.
It takes me about an hour of staring at stuff to get into writing. I need to really be organized about my time here, and I find it hard to write when something else distracts me. I do better when I have only one job. While I’ve known that for a while, I haven’t worked on actually getting into that mindset consciously. That could be something to work on in this coming week.