'Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day'. Norman Mailer I read this Norman Mailer quote on Sheila O’Flanagan’s Facebook page yesterday and it’s been ringing in my ears ever since.
I’m not feeling great this morning – I’ve spent the last few nights working on an Arts Council Funding Application, after a day’s writing and other things. My lower back is at me, from lifting Brownies over logs in the forest on their Indian Tracking Day yesterday (don’t ask!), and I don’t really feel like writing at all. But here’s the thing – it’s my job. And I know once I actually sit down and get on with it, I’ll be just fine. So that’s what I have to do.
I’m working on the second Shoestring novel – for 2013 – and I need to get it finished before the summer, so I can take my family holiday without feeling guilty or stressed. I’ve written 25k so far and plotted the whole book loosely, so I’m doing well so far. As the setting and the characters are the same (although it’s a different voice telling this one – Pandora rather than Jules), it has been easier to get into than other books. Then it’s straight back to the 5th Amy Green book. I’ve also got plans for another adult book which I think has a really great and very simple hook. More about that soon.
But sometimes it does take a huge amount of will to get me sitting down in the first place. I have books to review for Monday, two of them, and I could be curled up in bed reading them. But right now, I have to write (yep, still trying to talk myself into it).
Mailer is right. I’ll be teaching a popular fiction workshop at Listowel Writers’ Week in June and the first lesson will be – you got it, bum glue. Sitting down and getting on with it. So I guess I’d better take my own advice. And GET ON WITH IT!
Yours in writing,
Sarah XXX
PS Well what do you know? I managed 2,544 words this morning after all the procrastination and moaning. Just goes to show, sometimes the worst writing days turn into the best writing days.