A wise man once said

I recently learnt that Confucius said that ‘it doesn’t matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop’. And then in one of those once you see something once, you see it everywhere experiences, I’ve noticed lots of other people saying the same thing in all different ways. And it may seem pretty obvious, but to me it’s been a real eye-opener.

I am the world’s worst at beating myself up if I don’t hit my word target for the day or don’t manage to do any writing on a particular evening, and then I get stuck in this ‘I’m so behind’ spiral and all that serves to do is to derail me further. Two of the people closest to me have both reminded me in this last week that I write because I enjoy it, so I should enjoy the journey as well as the reaching the destination. This is my shiny new goal.

I’ve got rid of a daily word count, I’m not even keeping track of how many words I do each day, but I am trying to write every day and if that’s only 100 words, that’s okay. The days I do a lot make my smile brighter, but the few words here and there added when I can, are making my work in progress grow astonishingly fast, which in turn is making me look like I’m auditioning for a toothpaste ad.

Confucius also said ‘choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.’ Wise man, that Confucius.

Your starter for 35

This may sound a little nerdy but for the last two years I’ve been keeping a list of the books that I’ve read (yes, okay, it’s a lot nerdy). I decided to do this because I read very quickly and so I can’t always remember what I’ve read. When I’m actually reading something I’m totally immersed in the plot and invested in the characters, so much so you could tell me you were leaving a million pounds right beside me and, if I’m reading, I wouldn’t hear you or notice when someone else made off with the money. But once that book goes back on my bookshelf, is returned to the library, or is filed in my Kindle cloud, I’m totally invested in the next one.

The number of books I’ve read this year has just passed the number I read in the whole of last year (the 35 of the title, which will have book bloggers and my teenage-self rolling about laughing at how few this is) but it’s great to see for someone always moaning about a lack of time. And it’s fascinating to see how eclectically I read – I don’t think I can say I read in a favourite genre any more. It’s also amazing how it’s almost like a journal in how it maps out my year – in January I wasn’t well so I read 9 books, in April I was editing in every spare second I had so I didn’t read any.

I wish I’d started this list years ago, not least so I could remember the one book I read so many times when I was ten, you’d think the title would be tattooed on my brain – about a gang of kids led by a boy called Ginger, if anyone can help me out.

Rightie or leftie - apparently we're both

So I had most of my next blog post written out –

So which are you? And I’m not talking about the hand you hold a pen with.

I bought a book once called ‘Organising for Creative People’ in which there was a quiz to see which side of your brain is dominant. People, it said, usually score slightly higher on one side or the other – I scored 80% right brain. Right brain is what governs the creative side, the part of your mind that wants to play with pictures and colours. The left side is the logical side, the analytical thinker good with logic and numbers. You can see why I needed the book now, can’t you?

Writing, I’ve learnt, is very much a both sides working together activity. The ideas come out of my right brain and I need my left brain to filter out the ‘that’s just crazy’ ones. I need logic and analytical skills to ask questions about my characters, give the story its structure and make sure I keep to my themes. My creative side, that’s where all the really cool stuff happens – where the ideas feed from, where the characters are born, where the ‘instead of that, how about this’ bursts out and changes everything I’d been assuming to be true in the context of my story.

And then, I have no idea why, I decided to google left/right brain dominance and – insert sound of a needle scratching across a record - it turns out that research published this week has totally debunked this theory. It now appears that, whilst some functions do occur in one or other side of the brain, how we use our brains seems to be determined more connection by connection.

All very fascinating but all very unhelpful for my poor blog post.

But it made me think about research – it’s so easy now to find out everything about anything, to justify an argument with a fact or a quote, to be able to talk convincingly about a place you’ve only visited through travel blogs and YouTube. And fascinating when you discover a little known fact about a little known fact and, if my experience is anything to go by, I’d be surprised if surfing isn’t the number one accidental displacement activity for writers. Can you imagine if suddenly, à la sci-fi/dystopian/conspiracy plot, the internet was no more? Apparently the internet has never been for two thirds of the world’s population, according to another little nugget I picked up this morning. Now, of course, my right brain is pinging book ideas at me as if, not only has the internet ended, but there will be no tomorrow - please keep quiet about the fact it can’t be doing this!

Catch!

So, this week was supposed to be brilliant because I’m on leave from the day job, the summer has finally, after six years of getting here, arrived, I was ready to start my next book, dreams of sitting out under an umbrella with iced coffee to hand and fingers flying over the keyboard. And what happened? The sun vanished and it rained – don’t even get me started on the forecast for next week - I had to go to the dentist with a problem and I came down with a virus that has meant more time lying on the sofa waiting for painkillers to kick in than sitting at my desk at the screen face, watching my word count rise. Frustrated.com.

Our American cousins have a fabulous saying for this – this is life throwing you a curveball. A curveball doesn’t sound so bad, does it? But its dictionary definition is downright nasty – something that is unexpected or designed to trick or deceive. For me this week it’s only been a little curveball but one that has totally wrecked my plans and made me feel utterly miserable and quite cheesed off. Exactly the same thing happened to me at Christmas when I stopped work for a few days. It seems to be a common thing that we run on high stress as the norm so when the stress temporarily disappears, our bodies nosedive into recovery mode and things we may have been fighting at a low level for some time have the space to rear up front and centre. Hello, virus.

So by now you’ll be expecting one of those platitudes about when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade, but right now, I’d be much more inclined to chuck the pitcher. What I have realised though, tossing and turning for half the night, is that me being angry and uptight in full diva mode, really isn’t helping me feel any better. I had other plans for my holiday but at least I can sleep on the sofa without the pressure of having to be anywhere else and I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about scenes while trying not to watch the clock tick round to morning. I’m just finishing reading a book I really haven’t enjoyed that much so now I get to read one I will, without feeling guilty about not doing something else. I’m going to try giving myself a break and boosting up my immune system with lovely things like reflexology and massage ;)

But I’m still annoyed about the weather forecast . . .

A strange gift

I had to go to a funeral last week – one of my writing friends, Colin Webb, had sadly passed away. It was a glorious day, all at odds with how it should be on such a sad occasion, which made me think of a clever story he’d had published about a funeral at midnight in atrocious weather. So many people came to pay their respects that the service was late starting while as many chairs as could be were found and still the mourners spilled out into the gardens.

And during the service and afterwards chatting with friends, I realised that a funeral can actually be a gift. Colin’s service was entitled a service of thanksgiving and, sad as it was to reflect that he’s no longer with us on this plane, we could all be thankful that he had touched our lives. And, of course, there’s that reminder, knocking us a bit more insistently on the shoulder that day, that yesterday has gone, tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, but today, that’s a gift, which is why it’s called the present. During my kids’ childhoods, I used to stop sometimes and just watch them, thinking I needed to imprint that time in my mind as it wouldn’t come again and, if I didn’t do so, it would be lost.

Colin’s funeral also got me thinking how often I can get distracted with ‘busy’ work which, in the great scheme of things, if I were looking back at my life, I wouldn’t want to have spent so much time on. It seems my ‘to-do’ list would be much better entitled ‘things I’m glad to do’. Yes, the mundane has to fit in there somewhere but ‘things I’m glad to do’ feels so much more inspiring it might even make washing the car seem like something fun . . .

I'm still here!

So, what have I been up to since my last blog entry? Clearly not writing my blog!

I single-mindedly finished my edits on the book I’ve been working on for the last year and sent it off to my agent – cartwheels, fireworks, huge sigh of satisfaction :)

I gave myself a couple of weeks off in the evenings and it was quite a revelation to me (as it always is at this point) that people go out and do things in the weekday evenings! Taking youngest son to his boating, hubby and I went for a leisurely coffee, instead of me sitting editing, writing, or planning in the car, wonderful stuff. I’ve also done a lot of reading, and have read some excellent books which you can see on my ‘what I’ve read’ list.

After about three days my muse had enough of watching TV and generally relaxing and began waving story ideas at me, trying to seduce me back to my desk . . . And that’s where I am right now, except for desk read table in the garden, under an umbrella, enjoying this fantastically un-British like weather, busy plotting. I now have an outline for the sequel to The Only, which I’ll be fleshing out during the next week, and then I’m aiming to start writing in about seven days. And I’m really excited about what’s coming Maya’s way. Good things or bad things? That’ll be for you to decide.

A breath of fresh air

You may have noticed it’s been forever a while since my last blog post. In my defence I have been working really hard to get my edits done and when I'm getting close to a goal, I get a little single-minded and tunnel-visioned. The closer I get to the finish line, when all I want to do then is reach the goal, every minute I’m not working towards it, is a minute I’m stressing that I should be.

 

And yet, with a little distance, and headspace, you can often achieve more because it sharpens your perception of what you need to do and how you can do it. It also gives your right brain, that wonderful left-field creative touchy-feely side of you, time to do its stuff. Even knowing this, I sometimes have to be dragged kicking and screaming away from my desk . . . Which my husband did manage to do in April and we had a fabulous week being out and about in the cold, wet, snow, sunshine and warmth that are Spring in the UK.  We walked about 25 miles over four days, not a lot of distance but we did some good steep climbs in the Peak District and the Cotswolds.

 

Climbing over a stile in the sunshine during our staycation, I had a cracking idea for a new book and for the next hour we had to keep stopping so I could note story ideas for it down on my phone. Even now in the May gloom (!) the idea is making me smile and I can’t wait to start drafting it into a fully-fledged outline. Just need to finish whipping the current work in progress into shape first, so if you need me, I’ll be at my desk every second of every minute I can be until I’ve typed those glorious words ‘The End’.