Night is darkest...just before the day

Truly bitten by the bug at the moment.

Ideas coming thick and fast.

You know a productive day lies ahead when every sinew and morsel in you is planning meals around your writing schedule. Fun activities pale into the back-burner in comparison. Writing consumes you.

I have this one scene; dear goodness...I'm about 4,000 words away from writing it. I can't wait. I will craft it. I will make it poetic. I will do it justice.

As I think I mentioned in a previous post; at my Gran's funeral (she lived to 100), a random person at her wake said, I read your book; I really like how you capture the light-hearted moments and then throw me into the dark without warning. 

I think I'll try that again. Can't wait.

The title for this book - btw - is: The Children at the End of the River.

In a dark place, when I had the virus back in March; and I'm talking the nadir of nadir's...this idea came.

I was taking a trip down memory lane, using google maps to scour places I'd visited as a kid. Forested places. Country roads that wind to nowhere. I was thinking about my Grandpa who passed away on Christmas Eve and, I guess - in my malaise - using happy memories as some kind of comfort blanket.

Then I scrolled down from above on to the river I used to play in as a child.

Instantly there.

I hope I look back on this profound moment of darkness in my own life and realise that I was actually being thrown into the light.

The Writer's Confidence

At this moment in time I have three unfinished books.

One nearing a hundred thousand words, one on 27,000 and the other (the latest) sitting on 32,000. (I’m really driving with the latter.)

All in all, that’s nearly 60,000 words for this year alone, which isn’t bad I guess.

So, what exactly stunted the progress of the first two as I know I’m not done with either, and I will revisit them both.

Confidence.

Self-belief.

Listening to the very top athletes – and I mean those who are in the peak of their condition – I never cease to be amazed by the following fact they reiterate time and time and time again…

5% of their success is to do with their physicality and 95% is to do with their mind.

95% is to do with their mind. That's whopping. The best of the best say, it's majority mind.

So, I’ve written and published two books but I don’t feel like an author.  I don’t remotely feel like an author. I’ve never taught English in secondary school (apart from a term for year 7's). I don’t have a lucrative book deal in the pipeline. I don’t stick to a manicured and methodical writing schedule. I don't have people queuing for signatures or interviews.

Weirdly, I don’t exactly need an extrinsic form of recognition to keep writing, or an external candidate ‘validating’ that I have written a good book because, regardless, I always see the process of creating and crafting a story as a beautiful labour of love in of itself. So, what’s preventing me from pushing some projects over the edge? How do I build my writer’s confidence?

Countless times I have started writing a segment that took me in such a vibrant and glorious direction I was left thinking: ‘where the heck did that come from – that is stellar stuff!’ It’s happened frequently and recently too.

So, why is it that when I open the document I occasionally feel like the previous material wasn’t really from me; like I’m a charlatan; pretending to be something I’m not? Or, that I’m not worthy enough to find and deliver good scenes/moments even when they explode in my mind. How odd is that?

As a writer I need to take great heart from the top athletes who have fully grasped that putting one foot in front of the other (and just keep doing something like that over and over) is sometimes all it takes.

So, I didn’t write any words for the latest novel today because I did not possess the writer’s confidence to pursue a line or ten. Yet, paradoxically, I’ve written 400+ words for this blog post.

I’ll keep working on my ‘winning’ mentality along with you all. Wish me luck.

 

 

For what it's worth...

I love being a teacher; I really do.

I get to positively impact the lives of children on a daily basis - challenging but surmountable 'even' in a British lock-down.

What a year so far: what a crazy, crazy year?

For some bizarre reason, I haven't touched Shelly Clover 2 (90,000 words and counting) in nearly two years. I'm neeeaarllllyy there with that. Is it confidence issue as I approach the finish line? Is it subliminal procrastination? Goodness only knows.

What I do know - despite Stephen Covey's assertions surrounding 'circles of influence and circles of concerns' in his book,  'The 7 Habits of highly effective people'  - is that life throws some substantial  roadblocks.

I can also unequivocally and categorically state that our privatised education system here in the UK is so consuming, so exponentially consuming...that my dreams are on the back-burner.

I will return to Mis-fit, Misplaced, Miss Shelly Clover part deux, I will, I will, I will...

Back in March, I'm convinced that I had the dreaded 'C'. KO'd for two weeks I was. The unearthly fatigue, conjunctivitus, change in taste and utterly bizarre 'cytokinin' response were horrific. Two weeks of hell and ALWAYS in the 80% (as it turns out), not like these poor souls who were tipped over the edge.

In the midst of a 'very' dark place I used google maps and found a place of sanctuary I visited as a youth. I think it was a longing for my homeland, perhaps even a virtual comfort blanket for my exceedingly troubled and anxious soul. Again, goodness knows.

But whatever: 'BANG!'

Like a lily in the dirt at the bottom of a pond, slowly rising to the surface, and blossoming...this moment of map searching triggered an idea that I cannot get out of my head. The long and short; there's a new idea, a new book.

I want to share it with you; put it in your hands, put it in your heads.

I can only hope, this time, that our neo-liberal education system - based upon callous quantitative data and actuarial analysis (and largely overseen by Sociopathic ladder-climbers) - does NOT prevent me from delivering this.

It could be good; really good.

Much love.