You Can’t Win ‘Em All

It’s almost time to hang my ‘Gone Fishin” sign on the front of this blog and take a short hiatus for the festive season. I am officially ‘on holiday’ from today; I’ve retreated to my parents’ house, I’m on commis chef duty in the galley, and all those last-minute things that always manage to slip your mind until it’s (almost) too late are starting to pile up.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – but it sure is busy.

And also, stuff like this tends to happen.
Image: staceygustafson.com

In some ways, running around trying to get everything done at this time of year is a huge hassle, but in another it’s the best thing imaginable. This year, I think it’s a blessing in disguise for me. My brain needs a break from routine, and I’m glad to be able to give it a chance to refocus.

Maybe you’ll recall me saying that I had a task I wanted to complete before I declared myself off duty for Christmas; that task was to finish the first draft of ‘Emmeline.’ Sadly, however, I did not manage to complete that goal. Over the past few weeks I’ve been hit by two bouts of illness, which knocked me slightly sideways, and even though I’ve been doing my best to work through them I seem to have run out of steam, just a little. I have over 69,000 words of the book written – of course, that’s not to say 68,999 of them won’t be scrapped when it comes to editing time – and I’m happy with my progress, but I’m not happy to have fallen short of my aim. I really wanted to have a conclusion to ‘Emmeline’ written, saved and put away by the time Christmas rolled around, ready to be eviscerated by my editing brain come January.

Now, instead, I have to get myself back into writing mode as soon as my holiday period ends – and already I feel like I’m behind on next year’s work before it even begins.

I like to hit my targets, and I don’t like to make promises to myself – or other people – which I do not manage to keep. So, even though it feels silly to say so, I can’t shake the thought that my not getting ‘Emmeline’ completely finished is breaking my word, albeit only to myself. Having said that, I can honestly say I did my best to get the book finished. As well as that, ‘Emmeline’ has been tying up my mind for weeks now – which is why, in some ways, I think having to take a break from it is a good thing. It doesn’t feel like it right now, but I hope in the longer run it’ll pay off.

I reserve the right to look like this in the meantime, though:

Image: aspirekc.com

I’ll probably be too busy over the next few days to even think about my little heroine and her bunch of erstwhile friends, and the fact that I’ve left her hanging in a perilous situation, and the fact that I’ll be sending off a new round of queries to agents in the new year, and entering another competition, and trying to plan my next project (already in the pipeline); at least, I hope so. I think I’d like my head to be filled with baking dilemmas and seating arrangements for Christmas dinner and parcel-wrapping and all those other seasonal disasters that one expects at this time of year. Maybe then going back to ‘Emmeline’ will seem like a welcome change, and the book will be the stronger for it.

The past year has been a crazy one, for me. I started it in the throes of a book which will now never be read by anyone – neither human nor machine – and I finish it with (almost) three other books to my credit, and some encouraging feedback from a few very knowledgeable sources. I started it in a total panic – and I’m pretty much ending it the same way – but I do feel like I have a slightly better handle on the terror now than I did this time last year. I started 2013 wondering if I had the gumption and the grit to see it through, and I finish it safe in the knowledge that I have, and I did, and I will (one day, somehow) prevail. I guess that’s progress, by anyone’s measure.

And so, as I pull the shutters down over ‘Clockwatching…’ for a few days of rest, I want to say ‘thank you’ for reading, commenting, following my faltering progress, and cheering me on. If you’re celebrating Christmas, I hope you and your family have a wonderful time; if you’re not celebrating, I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I’ll see you all again next week when I’ll be back to the drawing board, and (hopefully) the Muse won’t have forgotten about me over the Christmas break.

Image: justhappyquotes.com

And who knows – perhaps Santa Claus will bring me representation and a publishing deal for Christmas… I’ve hung my stocking up, just in case.

Have a peaceful, happy and joyful Christmas, and let’s hope a bright New Year awaits us all.

Frustrated Friday

It’s Friday. This is, undeniably, a Good Thing, and I am looking forward to the weekend partly because it’s the weekend, of course, but also partly because I’m meeting an old friend tomorrow, and that will be lovely.

However, it’s also a Major Pain. This is because I’m also dealing with the fact that a competition I wanted to take part in, the closing date for which is next week, will probably have to remain unentered. This, my friends, is not only because I completely messed up the dates – this happens to me on a worryingly frequent basis – but also because a story idea I’ve been working on for a while is just not happening. It may happen in two weeks’, or three months’, or fourteen years’ time, but as of right now, it’s at a standstill.

This is frustrating.

This is what my head feels like.
Image: en.wikipedia.org

There’s so much about the story that I like. I really love the protagonist – everything from her name to her demeanour to her appearance pleases me. I have already imagined the final scene, and the ‘voice’ of the characters, completely different from anything I’ve written before, is an interesting journey for me. It’s so annoying, though, to have the beginning and the end of a strong story mapped out, and no clear way of getting from A to B. I know all the story needs is time, really, but time is what I do not have. I hate the idea of leaving a competition unentered just because I couldn’t get my act together, but there it is. It looks like that’s exactly what will have to happen.

I’ve made a point of entering competitions over the last few months – there is certainly no shortage of them. So far, I’ve had no success whatsoever, but then, success isn’t really the point. The point is to impose discipline upon myself, to have a deadline and to meet it, to fulfil the ‘brief’, so to speak, and to rise to a challenge. Simply meeting the deadline, for me, is a success in itself. So, you might understand now why I’m so irritated with myself. Not only have I missed a competition, in all likelihood, but I’ve also let myself down. It’s true that it’s not easy to keep track of everything, and I’ve had a lot of things to think about lately, but that’s no excuse really. The fact is, not only is the story not ‘right’, but I also thought I had an extra week in which to get this work done. I don’t. For some reason, I always manage to fudge dates when it comes to the end of one calendar month and the beginning of another. Somehow, in my mind, several extra days just creep in out of nowhere. This often causes me problems. You’d think, at this stage in my life, I’d have come up with a way to deal with this absent-minded dizziness.

Anyway.

I suppose, at the end of the day, it’s only a competition – and probably one in which my entry would’ve sunk without trace, too – and I should just give myself a break. It is important to take part in competitions and become part of a writing community when you’re starting off your journey as a writer, of course, but it’s also true to say that missing one out of the multitude isn’t the end of the world. It feels that way, but it really isn’t. I suppose the little voice at the back of my head will always be there: ‘You could’ve won this one. This could’ve been the one! You’re an eejit to have missed it.’ Those little voices in your head have an annoying tendency to be right, sometimes. That must be what makes them so annoying.

In any case, I still have today, and Sunday, before I need to really give up hope. Perhaps it will all work out: I’ll embark upon a writing marathon and the whole thing will just slot together like Lego and I’ll get it submitted with hours, instead of seconds, to spare. Yeah, maybe – and maybe I’ll also become the first Irishwoman to walk on the surface of Mars, or to cross the Atlantic using a jet-pack. You know, I have a feeling I’ll still be sitting over the same stubborn 800 words in a week’s time, wondering why they just won’t cooperate, and driving myself further round the twist.

Perhaps I should just throw in the towel, and take up knitting instead. What do you reckon?

Image: rcvs.org.uk

Have a wonderful Friday, and a happy (and hopefully unfrustrated) weekend!

Teeny-Tiny Tuesday

Hello, all.

I’ve not been feeling well for the past couple of days. Yesterday, I struggled with a headache that strangled my brain to the point of affecting my vision, and today I feel rather like a person who has been shoved into a barrel and rolled, willy-nilly, down a rocky mountain path. I managed to get a good night’s sleep last night, which has – to be fair – worked wonders, but I’m still not feeling my best self, shall we say.

I think the recent hot weather has been playing havoc with my person – and before anyone accuses me of complaining about the good weather, I’m not, okay, it’s been great – but, as always happens, by the time I’m used to the heat, no doubt it’ll be gone again and I’ll have to re-acclimatise to our normal weather conditions. I’m always one step behind, weather-wise! While it really has been wonderful to see blue sky and to be able to go outside without a rainjacket in the middle of the summer, some of us (i.e. me) are built like Yetis and can only function properly at low temperatures. Heat is not my friend.

This is my baby picture. No, seriously!
Image: scaryforkids.com

Also, I’ve been doing my usual ‘mad panic pressure have-to-do-everything-all-at-once’ nonsense again, and I really feel like I’ve blown a gasket in my brain. Yesterday was a total disaster, writing-wise. My blog post took twice as long as normal to prepare, and as well as that I couldn’t concentrate for longer than five or ten minutes at a time; trying to get any meaningful work done was a frustrating torment. However, instead of leaving the writing behind and going off to do something else, like a sensible person, I tried to truck on through. I never learn, do I? I do have competition deadlines coming up, and I want to put my best work forward for them, so I am going to have to try to remember that sometimes the best thing you can do for your writing is not to write. Work you produce under pressure, or when you’re not feeling well, is never going to make the grade – all it will do is make you feel worse, set you back even further and give you a lot of sub-standard words and sentences to unpick when you’re back on your feet again.

So, I’m going to take it a little easier today. I’m going to write, of course, but I’m going to remember that it’s supposed to be enjoyable and fulfilling, not something which makes me cry over my keyboard. If I can only do it in ten-minute bursts, that’s fine; if I need to have a lie-down (which I never do in the middle of the day, on principle), then I’m going to allow myself to do that. I have to realise that if I don’t look after myself, nobody else is going to. Not to mention that I’m going to need my brain, my body and my mental health to see me through the rest of my (hopefully long and happy) writing career, and that means taking care of what I’ve got, however humble it might be.

But then I keep saying this, and I never actually do it. Today, I promise, I will take my own good advice. And I don’t have any fingers or toes crossed!

This picture made me laugh, so I’m passing it on to you. Happy Tuesday!
Image: futurity.com

Have a good day. Hopefully I’ll be back on form by tomorrow, and raring to go for the Wednesday Write-In, as normal. See you then!

Unworthy

Today’s post is not just an excuse to use an image like this:

They weren’t worthy! Neither am I!
Image: teamliquid.net

However, while it may not have been the main reason, I have to admit the thought of using this image was part of my decision-making process. I love ‘Wayne’s World’, the ‘We’re Not Worthy!’ sketch has always made me laugh, and – I promise – there’s a connection ‘twixt image and blog post. Today I wanted to write a bit about something which has been weighing on me lately, and it’s connected with a feeling of unworthiness, or a nagging sense of I’m not good enough and I should just give up now before I make an idiot of myself and everyone is probably secretly laughing at me.

It’s an extremely damaging thing, this feeling. Not only for my efforts to create a career, but also for my own mental health. As well as all that, it’s completely ridiculous, but I find it difficult to remember that at times.

Ever since I started to write, and made it public (i.e. by submitting work wherever I could submit it, starting this blog and telling people about what I was up to, and trying not to cringe while I described myself as ‘a writer’), I’ve received nothing but solid support. Everyone – including friends of friends, people who only know me through my parents or my husband or, amazingly, people who don’t know me in real life at all and who I’ve only met through the medium of the internet – has lifted me up on a swell of encouragement and has been delighted to hear about my efforts; several people have even told me how impressed they are by my decision to follow a dream and do my best to live the life I’ve always wanted. Sometimes, I wonder if this is part and parcel of being a writer in Ireland, where I still think creativity is seen as a good and noble thing and not completely off-the-wall – but then, I’ve received support from all over the world, so perhaps that’s beside the point. Whatever the reason, I am grateful beyond measure for every smidgen of encouragement, and I hope this feeling I’m trying to describe, this feeling of ‘unworthiness’, won’t be understood as ungrateful rejection of all the generous and loving support I’ve been lucky enough to receive. That’s not what I mean, at all. These unworthy feelings are something I’m imposing on myself; it’s not out of character for me, but I really wish I could stop doing it.

It all began to manifest like this: on one of the recent occasions where I had something accepted for publication, I remember greeting the news not with unalloyed joy and a sense of accomplishment, but with a tinge of discomfort and upset. I’ve been trying to work out why ever since, and I’ve concluded that it was because despite working hard over the story, I felt wasn’t good enough, and I hadn’t been expecting it to be accepted, and when it was – well. My brain sort of flipped.

I couldn’t bring myself to think that ‘maybe the story was a little bit better than you’d thought it was’ or ‘perhaps you’re being a little hard on yourself’; I started to think damaging and destructive things like ‘they must have been short on entries’ or ‘they needed to fill a space in the publication.’ Now, I’m pretty sure those things aren’t true. I’m pretty sure the publishers had no shortage of stories to choose from. They chose mine, but I couldn’t allow myself to be pleased. I started doing that thing I do – you know the one, where I have a reaction which I know is irrational and silly, but I can’t help myself – and it felt really unpleasant. I felt like I was unworthy of the honour of having my story accepted, like the publishers were doing me a favour instead of saying ‘This story is good enough to form part of our publication’; it made me feel very odd. I didn’t like it. At the same time, I didn’t really know what to do in order to tackle it.

Writing is not an easy thing – I’m not even talking about the act of pulling words out of your brain and slapping them down on a page, though that is difficult too, of course. What I mean is, it’s not an easy thing to spend so much time by yourself, and to have little but your own thoughts for company; even if, like me, you’re a person who enjoys being alone and who thrives in the world of the mind, it can be a challenge. I’m beginning to wonder if too much time spent thinking can lead to the struts which keep your mind steady buckling a little under the strain, which can affect the way you see the world and yourself, and your place in it. It’s hard, too, to pressure yourself just enough to meet all your obligations and deadlines without exerting too much force, and ending up pressuring yourself into oblivion. When you only have yourself to regulate the pressure, it’s clear that sometimes things can go wrong.

So, I’m taking that on board today, and I’m going to think about ways in which I can create a new balance in my life without sacrificing too much of my writing time. I may take a few days’ leave from the blog – a little holiday, perhaps – and I may print out, in big letters, a sign which says the words YOU ARE ENOUGH! and place it over my desk. I am enough – I do enough – I will be enough.

I hope nobody can relate to this post, and that you’re all too clever to allow yourselves to fall into a trap like this one. I hope that your writing lives (and your non-writing lives, come to that!) are flourishing, that you’re taking it easy, and not piling pressure on your own heads. Thank you for all your support – I hope I’ll be able to continue counting on it! – and I hope Tuesday turns out to be a jewel of a day for all of you.

And remember – you are enough!

Reading vs Writing

And here we are, washed up on the shores of Thursday. How are you all?

I haven’t been doing a lot of writing this week, because life has managed to get in the way a lot over the past few days. It has a nasty habit of doing that just when you feel deadlines approaching and commitments (even if they’re only ones you’ve made to yourself!) piling up all around you. But, hopefully, from today until Saturday at least I’ll have time to get myself back on track and plough through some of the story ideas I’ve been working on; I’ll get them drafted and ready to sit, percolating, for a few days, all going well. I have competition deadlines coming up in June, July and August, and I need to have polished, professional work ready to submit.

Hang on, will you, just a second, while I breathe into this paper bag.

I can do this… I can do this!
Image: babyboomeradviserclub.com

Okay. I’m good to go.

This deadline-fear is one of the reasons I go through periodic bouts of panicky palpitations and sleepless nights and sweaty palms – it’s necessary to plan ahead like this in terms of project management and upcoming commitments, but taking the long view on things sure does make life seem frightening, and full, and extremely stressful. Taking things one at a time has been my lifelong mantra, but in this ol’ writing game, you don’t always have that luxury. Multi-tasking has become my middle name.

I should spare a thought at this point, actually, for the hundreds of thousands of kids in Ireland who are sitting their major summer examinations right now. They began yesterday – just, of course, in time for the sun to finally emerge out of its hiding place and start drying out this sodden little country – and I remember all too well that horrible pressure the kids are under. I wouldn’t go through it all again for a king’s ransom. In a way, though, going through an examination process is excellent preparation for life, don’t you think? Kids: I hate to say this, but it doesn’t get any better.

No. That’s a joke, of course. It gets loads better. You still have to cope with pressure, deadlines and stress, but you get to be old, creaky and scatter-brained at the same time, which makes it more fun, particularly for those around you.

Despite the fact that I have excellent deadline-juggling training, there is one aspect of it at which I really am not good; no, not good at all. That thing is: trying to fit my reading deadlines around my writing ones. I have no fewer than three books on the go at the moment – not an unusual thing for me, I have to admit – but there’s also the fact that yesterday, on a browse through my *stealth boast alert* extensive book collection, I realised that my To Be Read pile had grown to heights unheard of since my long-ago and far-away teens. I have so many books I want to read that I’ll have to take a week off just to get started on them. Reading, of course, is a vital part of writing, and so needs to be somehow factored into everything else; each book to be read is another small deadline, another commitment to meet. Luckily, of course, these are probably the only enjoyable deadlines in the world, and so it’s almost a good thing that I have so many of ’em piling up. At least, I tell myself this to make myself feel better about it.

Also, I’m struggling to ignore the fact that Neil Gaiman has a new book out in a few weeks.

Image: transparentwithmyself.wordpress.com

If I start letting myself think about this for too long, then all my other deadline-awareness flies out the window. Gaiman trumps everything in the great card game of life, of course. I have a feeling that all tools will have to be downed the second ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ comes out, because if I know it exists somewhere in the world, and I haven’t got my hands on it, then I will know no peace until it’s safely read and put on my shelf to admire along with all my other Neil Gaiman books.

Yes. I am an addict. I know.*

My main problem, as you’ll have worked out by now, is that I’m an addict to both reading and writing, and they’ve never come head-to-head before in quite such a way as this. Somehow, though, I’m sure I’ll struggle through. I suppose, really, it’s only right and fair to prioritise the writing deadlines, since they’re imposed by someone else (and are, let’s face it, a little bit more important), but I reckon I’ll pull a few all-nighters and meet most of my reading deadlines, too.

Phew. It’s a hard life.

Happy Thursday to you all. I hope, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, that you’re happy and well and have plenty to read. If you’re stuck for a book, let me know – maybe we can work something out!

*If my husband is reading this, I hope the fact that I’m about to wish him a happy birthday in public will make up for this blatant admission that I’ll be adding another tome to our Neil Gaiman shelf in a little while. Happy Birthday to the best and most understanding and loveliest husband in the world!

In Love with Life

It’s almost the end of May, everybody. In a few short days, this month will be entirely used up and cast aside in favour of June, and I’ll have to make good on my promise to myself that my book – my ‘Eldritch’ – will be ready to start the process of finding an agent.

That’s the problem with making promises to yourself, isn’t it? You’ve got to keep them.

I’m not saying that ‘Eldritch’ isn’t ready. It’s sitting here beside me, in a satisfyingly thick bundle of paper; I’ve read it over and over again. I’ve tweaked it, and fixed it, and pulled sentences apart, and unmixed my metaphors, and checked for continuity errors, and taken out some of the millions of commas that seem to grow, unchecked, in everything I write. But, somehow, it just doesn’t seem good enough, still.

Image: moma.org

I just wish I looked as glamorous as this when going through a crisis of confidence. Actually, I look a bit more like Kathy Bates in ‘Misery’. But anyway.

On top of working slowly through The Novel, I’ve also spent the past week writing short stories. I’m trying to work through my list of submission deadlines – lots of competitions are looming, and I want to push myself to enter as many of them as I possibly can. It’s been a while since I made a big submission, and I’ve got to keep this ball rolling as long as I possibly can. However, there is a problem.

None of the short pieces I’ve written have made my personal grade. I’ve worked very hard on them, and I’ve sweated over them, and I’ve chosen words with extreme care, moved paragraphs around, deleted half the story and started again from scratch, changed titles, changed characters, changed everything that can be changed, and… I still don’t like either of the two major pieces of work I’ve completed over the last few days. Hackneyed, cloying, clichéd, boring – this is how they seem, to me. I just know they’ll never be good enough.

The first piece I wrote was a story about a little girl who, confused by something which is happening in her home life, takes out her rage and fear on another girl, a child at school, who innocently involves herself in the first child’s life. The story follows the two girls as they grow older, and shows us how, at one point, the second child has a chance to help the first, but chooses not to because of the pain she still suffers as a result of the first child’s bullying actions when they were younger. I’m not sure why this story didn’t work. It should work. I wanted it to. For a while after I’d written it I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, which is unusual for me; normally, I’m visceral about these things, and I know straight away how I feel about a written piece. But for this one, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to like it, but it didn’t turn out the way I’d seen it in my head, perhaps.

The second piece was about a shy young man and his forceful, abrasive mother, and their strained relationship. For reasons the boy doesn’t understand at first, his mother’s angry sorrow is focused on a particular place near their home. It’s a place she asks her son not to go to, but it also happens to be a popular meeting point for parties, and so – inevitably – the day comes when the young man betrays his mother’s trust, and attends a party in this strange place, sacred to his mother. When the mother discovers her son has broken his promise to her, she is extremely angry, and in her subsequent breakdown the reason for her dislike of the place becomes clear to the boy at the same time as the reader.

Again, a story I really wanted to like. But it just doesn’t work.

Because of all this, I’ve probably been feeling a bit defeated over the past few days. My energy levels are a bit depleted, maybe, and my brain seems stuck in first gear. I needed some inspiration, some encouragement. I needed a reminder of what I’m doing here, and why I’m doing it.

And, yesterday evening, I found it.

I’m not sure if you’ll have heard of a poet named Dorothy Molloy Carpenter. Sadly, Ms. Molloy Carpenter passed away almost a decade ago, just before her first book of poetry was published (two further volumes were also published posthumously). During her time of illness, when she was facing into treatment for the disease that claimed her life, she wrote a prayer of sorts, called her ‘Credo’. This prayer was printed on a card that was distributed at her memorial service, which happened to be held at the University in which I used to work. Many years ago, someone gave me their copy of this card, and I’ve held on to it ever since; somehow, last night, I happened to read it again just when I needed to. I want to quote a little bit from the beginning of the prayer, if you’ll indulge me:

The one essential thing is for my voice to ring out in the cosmos and to use, to this end, every available second. Everything else must serve this. This is being in love with life.

Every voice is needed for the full harmony.

Well.

There you have it. Use every available second. Sing your song. Make your contribution. Say your piece. Write your story. Be in love with life.

Image: insehee.egloos.com

Happy Thursday. Use it as well as you can, and remember that the world needs every scrap of positivity, every drop of happiness, and every flicker of love that it can get. We can’t all save the world from terror, but we can all do our best to add to the communal store of joy. Let’s all do what we can.

 

 

Publish or Perish

My goodness, it’s cold this morning.

Almost as bad as this…
Image: fireballwhisky.com

It almost doesn’t matter, from my point of view, because what I’ll be doing today is printing out a hard copy of ‘Eldritch’ and going through it – line by line, word by word, syllable by syllable – with a pen. And, of course, I can retire to the coffee shop for this. Full of steam, condensation, and – crucially – other people, I’ll be able to stave off hypothermia in its kind embrace. Yay, say I, for coffee shops. Bastions of culture since the 1700s, and still going strong.

I don’t really want to look too closely at it, but it’s true that I also have before me a handwritten list of things that need to be done before the end of May. Most of them are competitions that I must enter; some are publications whose closing date for submissions is also the end of May. Then, of course, I have ‘Eldritch’, which needs to be gone and out of my mind by the end of May, too. It’s times like this I wish I had three brains. It’s really hard to divide attention between two or three projects and feel like you’re giving all of them your full attention, but I guess this is my lot. Deadlines don’t wait because you’re busy. Life doesn’t wait until you’re ready!

On the upside, my story, ‘Lord of the Land’, was published last night in the most recent issue of ‘Synaesthesia‘ magazine, and I was very happy to see it spring into life. This is the story I was telling you all about the other day, the one which I feel has more of me in it than most of the others I’ve written. Also, there’s a photo of me included at the end (brace yourselves); if you’ve always wondered what sort of head I have on me, well, wonder no more. I actually am a real life person, and not a shiny chrome android randomly hitting a keyboard, which may come as a relief to some of you. ‘Lord of the Land’ also has the dubious honour of being the last piece in my current clutch of ‘forthcoming’ publications for adults. I have one more story forthcoming for children, which will be published in about a week and a half, and after that, I’ll be all out for a while. Unless, of course, I manage to get some more stuff submitted, accepted and thrown out into the world. The cycle begins again.

This is the challenge, and the beauty, of writing, of course. You need to keep up the momentum. You can’t afford to stop once you’ve managed to build up even a small head of steam, and you start feeling the pressure of it quite quickly. It’s not unwelcome pressure, but it’s pressure nonetheless, and self-imposed at that – sometimes, that’s the worst kind. There are no easy answers, either, and no short cuts. I know what needs to be done – my head needs to bend to the grindstone, and no mistake. It’s lucky that I enjoy writing as much as I do, then; a shame, though, that pressure is the death of inspiration.

Maybe I’ll just start churning these out instead…
Image: romanceuniversity.org

In any case, those are the challenges (at least, the creative ones!) facing me this week, and for the rest of the month. Seven competitions and/or submission opportunities to enter, one little book to introduce to the potentially unwelcoming world, a children’s book conference to attend (which will be great fun, I hope), and desperate prayers that the stream of ideas and enthusiasm won’t dry up just yet to be said.

If all else fails, I’ll just go out and buy a copy of Dan Brown’s latest potboiler, which is being published today (as anyone into books will surely know); if he can do it, anyone can.

Not, of course, that I’m being sour-grapey, or anything…

Clutching at Socks

So, it’s the first day back to normality after a long Bank Holiday weekend, and I feel like my brain has turned to dust. I guess that’s normal. Isn’t it?

It’s a funny thing. When I’m really busy, and I have a hugely full schedule, and I have so many things to do that I’d actually need to clone myself to get to it all, I start to go into a catatonic state. I’m not sure if it happens to other people, but I know it happens to me. It’s sort of like a computer overloading when you give it too many tasks to perform all at once, I suppose.

Image: windows.fyicenter.com

I remember once ‘coming to’, sitting on the side of my bed, one sock on and one sock off, having frozen mid-thought for an unspecified length of time, on the morning of one of the busiest days I’ve ever had. It was in the midst of my PhD studies, and I was also helping to organise a major international conference, and teaching, and writing papers, and planning my own presentation at said conference (in front of several major big-wigs in the field), and I guess it all got too much for me. Putting on two socks in quick succession was the one tiny task that made my brain decide ‘Yep. Enough is enough. I’m going to my happy place now, for a little while.’ It was a very strange moment though, to snap back to reality with a sock in your hand, not quite sure what you were going to do with it.

I feel a little bit like that this morning – overwhelmed with deadlines, things to remember, entries to competitions that I simply cannot forget, planning for the future, and lots of other things. I feel a brain freeze may be imminent, and so I’m trying to distract myself in order to stave it off. I can’t exactly avoid putting socks on, in case that simple action tips my brain over into the abyss again, so I’ll have to be clever about it.

Something that might help me to divert my own attention is the fact that I now have a printer that works once again. Huzzah! I never realised how useful a gadget a printer is until I didn’t have one. I’ve been happily looking forward to printing my current short story project and getting at it with my editor’s pen ever since yesterday evening. Nothing can really compare with printing a piece and seeing how it fits on the page, and whether it flows properly, and how its sections look in black and white. I finished this particular story last week, and it’s definitely one of the weirder pieces I’ve ever written (and I say this in full knowledge of the fact that I’ve published a story about cannibalism – so you can perhaps gauge what I’m talking about.) I like the story, but I’m not sure about it. It’s amazing how printing something out can make or break it; I wonder sometimes if printing a piece fools you into thinking it’s a proper book, and you can slot it into a different critical space in your brain, one that you reserve for formulating thoughts about other people’s work, and not your own. Certainly, seeing something of mine on paper allows me to look at it with a completely new perspective.

I guess this is the only way to avoid the dreaded brain-freeze, then – focus on one small task at a time, break it down into do-able chunks, get it off your schedule, and move on to the next small task. If you look at everything all at once, it’s no wonder your brain decides to vamoose.

Image: casartcoverings.com

So, that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll get this story out of my head, and then move on to the next thing, and after that the next, and after that, the next, and so on for the rest of my life. I’ll never be finished, of course, but I hope I won’t be popping back to consciousness clutching a random sock in my panicky fist ever again, either.

Happy Tuesday! May your day be both panic- and sock-free, and I hope your brain is at full power.