Chapter 4 (1200)

I seem to be on a bit of a roll (just writing it has jinxed it) but the story is being stitched together. I can see what will need to happen in second draft now, find the little links and hooks and make sure they go somewhere, preferably towards one of the other strands. I'm missing the peace and quiet and sheer boredom of Winchester, though, there are so many distractions here!  Baby bird to feed, cats to keep off the baby blue tits in the garden, children to see to, meals to cook, husband to entertain in his lunch hour, postman to deal with, phone ringing...that's without any housework or actual paid work. How does anybody actually write a whole book? 
One thing I've been doing is strengthening the story by reducing the number of points-of-view, rewriting the teenager's scenes as much as possible through the eyes of Jack, the main character. It gives an insight, which feedback from class has suggested is missing, into the motivations and character of Jack, who is supposed to be at the centre of the story, after all. I often find that the peripheral characters seem stronger, partly because you can 'see' them through the lead's eyes which is harder to do through the central character. But they also seem quirkier and more interesting, so I'm going back to strengthen the main people and play down the visiting talent. It does make you think about the personality of the person more, and I'm playing around with the relationship from the other side, see which works best.