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The Mental Challenge of Writing, Writing and Writing some more!

Where to start with this topic?


This is the hardest area for me this year. The mental block, the procrastination...

I've wanted to be a writer since I was a child. 

Along with every other known profession going. 

You name it, I wanted to do it and / or be it, from being a teacher, doctor, gymnast, vet, high flying lawyer to being an astronaut after accidentally being jettisoned into space while visiting space camp. 

Yes, I would be the one who'd hunt vampires and be the first to meet extra-terrestrial life because the world is vast and full of an infinite number of possibilities. 

As we grow those possibilities and opportunities grow ever smaller, in our imagination and then in our reality. 

We are on a treadmill and we are running out of time! 

Help!

It's not all negative though. 

I've never got past the thought that I have it in me to write. Not just to write but to write something substantial of book length. I used to write silly short stories and poems during my childhood.

My friends and I were actually very creative and we got so much joy from it. We laughed so much and we used each others creativeness to be even more creative and whacky. Julie and Caroline, I love you both very much and I'm so happy we are still in touch. I have no idea if you will ever read this but the love is real and the love is there.

At one point as a teen, I did have a prospective agent for my poetry but it just fizzled out. I now have no idea where my poetry ended up as I misplaced them.

I came to writing this blog because I really needed to write. It's been there for a long time. A need to write my thoughts, feelings and to express myself. I tried other forms such as a diary etc but it didn't seem to be enough. 

I feel this blog is the easiest thing to do. Give me a topic and I may struggle to string two words together but ask me to express what I'm thinking and get it down on to paper. Well I can do that without any thought. It just flows easily for me.

In a similar vein, I could easily write an autobiography but that's somewhere I've never ever wanted to go.

My Plan

I want to write a fiction book. 

I've tried in the past and I've failed spectacularly. 

Normally, I run out of steam, I can't think what to write, I procrastinate. Then the boredom sets in and other things in life become way more interesting and pressing. Like staring out the window and watching the world go by... that kind of thing.

This time, I'm approaching the task of writing like anything else I do nowadays. 

Methodically...

I've been researching and 80,000 words is a good word count to aim for. Then, realistically I know I can only write term time, Monday to Friday. The kids are in school for 190 days which means I need to aim for 421 words a day. So the aim is to spend the time writing to that word count as a minimum per day.

Sounds easy? It sounds manageable, if I knew what the hell I was going to write about.

I've attended a creative writing course, read a lot about the process of writing online, including a blog by an author and friend, who I was a massive fan of  Christopher Pike's Writing Advice

The next steps are choosing my genre, developing my ideas, planning the book and researching. I know that I don't need to go flesh out the latter steps completely before starting but it may help as I'm new to this. A paint by numbers approach. Where I have a scaffold in which to build will help the flow of writing. Hopefully this will stop me falling into procrastination and writers block.

I don't have long to pull all these bits together. This is where I'm focusing all my time. I want to spend Day 1 writing my opening because it will then motivate me to keep going each day.

This blog and this novel writing is for me alone. 

I don't expect it to be seen, published, successful or to make money. It maybe the worst thing ever written! I have no idea if I have a natural talent for storytelling and being my first I'd say it will need a lot of work. 

That's not the point. 

It's to push myself to the limits and to see what I am capable of. To know I can do it. 

They say that everyone has at least one novel in them. Lets hope it transposes itself on to paper! 

I have a feeling that this is the area of my life that will lead to the most sweat, tears and heartache. 

The fear is that I'll have nothing to show for it at the end. 

Equally it could make my ultimate childhood dream come true and that's worth facing the fear. 

If I write it, what will I do next? I haven't thought that far. 

If I write an approx. 80,000 word draft, I'll just be celebrating because that's my ultimate goal. 

The rest, I can't even imagine because that doesn't feel tangibly within my reach right now and that's ok. 

It's about breaking it down and reaching the daily goals. One step and one day at a time.

*Featured image was created using Microsoft CoPilot Designer powered by DALL-E 3

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