On writing

On Writing – Update

Jacqui asked me why I hadn’t posted an update on my writing the other day. I told her it had only been a few weeks to which she pointed out my last update was 10^th October. Wow, has it really been that long? Sorry for going dark on you all, I didn’t mean to!!

Any long term reader of the blog will know that when the writing is going well I post regular updates, when it is not going well I tend to keep quiet. After all there is only so many times a man can whine about having no time in the day.

As it happens progress has not been too bad. It is not as good as I had hoped but I have been more inconsistent than anything.

Back in October I was called to do Jury Service - a process that is both interesting and mind numbingly boring at the same time. The endless hours of waiting around, did allow me to do quite a lot of writing however so that was good. The bad news was that I was off work for two weeks, which meant stupidly long hours when I returned and which I haven’t really stopped doing since.

During the last couple of weeks I have also picked up a virus - Sinusitus (is it a virus?), which has meant after sorting out work and the kids I have mainly wanted to just go to bed.

At some point between my last update and the present, I realised I was being stupid in beating myself up in not getting writing done.  It was really getting me down and I was stressing as each day passed and I hadn’t found the time to progress the novel. One morning I woke up and decided it didn’t matter. If I don’t get the time, I don’t get the time. I am honest enough with myself to know when I am slacking on the writing front and at the moment this really is not the case. I therefore shouldn’t beat myself up when I am not writing due to factors beyond my control.

The last few weeks I have found some sort of rhythm again. The target of 500 words tends not to happen. Instead I have bursts of writing over 1,000 words every 2-3 days. Far from ideal but the book is progressing slowly.

Last time:

Total words book 2: 46,246

Today:

Total words book 2: 59,242