Yes..contest sounds like quite a challenge! I think I like the sound of it more than NaNoWriMo (which is soon to be upon us) as it makes you concentrate intensively.
Good use of a bus journey. I’d be interested to see how exactly you map out your novel. Do you use diagrams or brainstorm ideas or write tidily in sections. Are there formulas that you follow to get you started or does it all just hopefully ‘flow’? Maybe you could do a blog post on that kind of thing?