Stopping writing in the middle of an interesting and important sequence does work well for me. The time I ended was somewhat enforced on Thursday, but it meant that when I sat down to write again yesterday, I had a clear idea of where I was going and what needed to happen next in the story.
The trouble is that it's very hard to force myself to stop in the middle of something interesting - the natural human inclination is to carry on and tell it until a regular break appears in the story. Once I've get to a point where it takes a pause and things have settled down, then the instinct for me is to take that pause as well. Of course, that means when I come back to it, I'm having to start from scratch.
So, I guess I need to make more of an effort to tear myself away in the middle of scenes, so I can regather that momentum when I start off again. I've heard of some who stop writing in the middle of a sentence, but I'm not sure I could go that far. Sentences for me often come as complete entities, so pulling away and not putting down that next word or finishing it off would just feel wrong.
So, where am I on the current story? For a start there's a lot less sex in there than I expected, though there is a nice romance going on in one strand. In the other, our heroine has just found herself covered in mud and lying next to a pig sty. It'll all make sense.
Total words so far is 20,717, decently ahead of the 1000-a-day schedule.
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