Monday 20 October 2014

Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul

Age wrinkles the body; quitting wrinkles the soul - Douglas MacArthur

I apologise now for the lack of blogging I have been doing of late. I have no excuses, life just seems to have taken over. That isn't to say that I have been sitting around doing nothing. I have enrolled in a touch typing thingy on-line. I say enrolled when in fact all I have done is registered so I can keep a track of my progress. Its free and it's called Typing Study. If like me you type entire novels with two fingers, give it a go. I'm spending half my lunch hour doing it and so far Im on lesson three. Hopefully by lesson 15 I'll be typing whilst looking out of the window or some such… and I won't get RSI, preventing my writing career when it finally takes off. 

Well today I am apprehensive. I feel like I should pack in the whole writing malarkey. Perhaps it's because I'm scared. Tomorrow my writing group is critiqueing my next novel: Poison in the Water and I think it's going to be brutal. It's kind of making me wonder why I spend hours a day writing. It's making me want to employ a ghost writer. Quite frankly it's making me want to give up. But You just can't be a quitter if you want good things to happen to you. Don't they say you give up right before the good stuff happens? (I'm sure Ive seen this at least a dozen times on Pinterest). Anyway it's just one of those days. I'm sure I'll be over it by tomorrow (well maybe the month after the critique).

 I keep telling myself we all have to start somewhere and I shouldn't be too down on myself - good things are happening. For instance last week was a good week. BBC Radio Oxford called me because they want me to do a call in on the morning show about self publishing. Did you get that? They called me… I was happy. The happiness was soon chased away by fear (If it's a call in, and I can't see someone will my mind drift? Will my mind go blank? - This happens to me a lot on the phone. (I find the more I write the less articulate I am verbally - Please tell me there are other writers out there like that?).

And then on the 16th October I went to the Society of Author's Writers in Oxford Event in Balliol college. It was a nice evening and I got to mingle and talk to other authors. I've just realised I should have taken a picture for my blog or my website!!! Always wise after the event. I've also sent out a submission for my first Chupplejeep novel: Under the Coconut Tree! Keep your fingers crossed. And I've hit 40,000 words on my next Chupplejeep book: The Body in the Bath.  It's going well - well it was before I hit this crisis of confidence. 

Until next time...