April 3rd 2017:- I now have 60 thousand words, so even if I only wrote another 10 thousand, it would be a novel-size manuscript. I really do feel as if I am on the home run now. I remember when I first decided that I had thought about the idea long enough, and that I had to start the writing, and how often I had doubts about the story, how it would pan out, whether I could stay the course and so on. And, here’s a funny thing: I don’t know exactly what it is that brings about the decision to start the writing at the beginning of a novel. Perhaps it’s as simple as feeling bored with carrying the stuff about in your head all the time. Maybe it resembles the business of standing on a diving board, full of fear, but knowing you have to go sometime, and at a certain point, the action is triggered, and off you go. The hippo below came to London in 1850. The caption below the photo reads:- ‘Crowds look on as Obaysch rests in the London Zoo in this 1852 photograph taken by Juan, Count of Montizón.’
