I spent a glorious week in September at a writer's retreat. I'd never done this before and wasn't sure I would last a day, never mind a week, with just other writers and my fledging novel for company. As it was, I needn't have worried as the week flew by in a flurry of new friends, lots of laughs and 20,000 words added to The Sound of the Sea.
However, I've written virtually nothing on the novel ever since, due to the pressure of the day job and a brand new term's teaching. However, I know these are only excuses. There are two things stopping me writing.
1) I wrote some quite dark passages while I was on the writer's retreat, involving tough 'stuff' that happens to my main character. This was fine in the cosy atmosphere of the retreat but having come back to daily life again, I find that I don't want to finish writing these dark passages and I just want to get to the 'fun' bits, particularly after a tough day at work.
2) I already have, to date, three and a half other unpublished novels (the half is a whole other story) under my belt. Two of these have already done the rounds of literary agents but no avail. One was read by a publisher but rejected. The lily-livered part of me is thinking: why do I want to continue writing yet another unpublished novel?
And yet (there always is an 'and yet' for writers). If I could muster just one tenth of the enthusiasm with which I started writing all these novels, I would have the first draft of The Sound of the Sea finished in a trice.
So maybe it's time to start to 'fool' myself into falling in love with the novel again. I know it's only because I've got to the saggy middle part of the novel, like a cake that has failed to rise in the middle. Maybe I'll start this week by making the following resolutions:
*to write for 10 minutes a day for five days a week
*to write some more fun bits if the dark stuff makes me feel like I'm cloaked in Proustian misery.
ends
