On setting a target - and hitting it

I have spent the last five weeks aiming to complete my first novel (which has been on the back burner for the last ten years) by the end of August.

There was a plan in place, including spending the last week on a personal writer's retreat in Crete.

This was my office - for an hour or so before breakfast and more snatched moments before and after dinner - in the beautiful Aquila Rithymna Beach hotel on Crete's north coast.

Now I have returned home with the first draft of A Satisfactory Conclusion completed. It needs editing before I submit it to agents, but we'll see how far it gets.

My deadline for completing the editing process is just another 11 days, in the rather more prosaic setting of home. That is probably right - I need to focus on the polishing of this draft to achieve my best work.