About five weeks in to my run of obsessive writing, I hit a wall. I didn’t justify my inactivity as writers block. How could I, when I wasn’t really a writer yet? I decided I was wasting my time. No one would buy the book, who on earth was I to assume I could write something worth reading? The kids asked “how’s the book going Mum?” to which I replied; “I’ve gone off the boil a bit.”
I Candy Crushed a lot. Downloaded several books on to my Kindle and lost myself in them instead. To be honest, that could very easily have been the point when the experiment came to an end. After a stretch of not writing, summer was on us, the days were too nice to be spent inside. Harvest and farm work absorbed my time. I have never had trouble finding things to do…I can easily fill a day with the washing, cleaning, walking the dogs. Book keeping, farming, conversation. I am an expert prevaricator when there is something I should be doing.
Then I gave myself a severe talking to! “Finish the book this year. You are more than half way through. If it doesn’t sell, so what? It’s a good story, better than some you’ve read. Get your ass in gear, sit down at the computer and write.”
So I did. The twists and turns in the plot began meeting up. I grew fond of my characters and their lives. When a new chapter didn’t lead me on, I went back to the beginning: edited passages, changed words. It would be fair to say that some parts of this book have been changed more often than the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. But I got the book finished.
I have a new respect for authors and the work they put in!
Sam Russell 