18,200 words down.
I think I hate dialogue. I put my characters together in the same room They were supposed to strike up some witty banter "How's Mavis and the kids?" "Done any good henching lately?" "Come on Charlie, show us where she bit you", that kind of thing. But nothing. Interior, day. Five men sitting around a table playing cards. In walks our POV character, "Wotcher guys" he says cheerily. Then... nothing.
All day I sat at the keyboard, prodding an poking these characters, but they steadfastly refused to speak. The next day they were still not talking.
So in the end I said sod it, and ran a nice hot bath, to which I retired with a large glass of riesling and iPlayer on the iPad. A couple of glasses, two episodes, one of Dad's Army and one of Outnumbered later, and I was suddenly inspired. I knew what the scene was lacking: Stuff. So having dried off and re-clothed I rushed downstairs and gave my characters some stuff to play with. One guy had a bag. Okay, what was in it? Sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Three lots. He's sharing them out with his mates. So what's in them? Something his sister caught while out hunting. Ewww... And very quickly I've rattled off two scenes, and a quite respectable 1800 word day.
Another lesson learned :)
