Back in the Swim.

Hello, yes, I came back to the blog. More out of frustration than anything else. I had such plans for the Christmas Holidays, and now I'm stuck in Jury Service and all plans are out of the window. Mainly, getting back to the novel and getting next 20,000 words edited and off to agent/s.

An update is probably required here. In the summer I finished first rough draft - oh yes, eventually, 72,000 words came or were dragged out of me and onto the page. I then polished and refined 20,000 of them and sent them off to friendly agent and powerful agent. Both liked it! Eek! Both wanted to see more. So naturally I instantly stopped writing - duh, obvious innit. That's what any good self destructive does. At the time though I just thought I was busy doing other things - like teaching and life, until I read the rather less rough draft of an ex-students book. She is writing about the activity of Creativity and how we cope with it in our lives (I'm not sure that's how she'd describe it, but it is sufficient for my purposes this morning).
It was a revealing read. She talks about the archetypes in all of us and our fears of success and failure being equal. (There's more, but you'll have to buy the book when it comes out.)

Knowing the problem is half the battle. I'm a firm believer that 'Writers Block' doesn't exist - it is a euphemism for 'can't be arsed'. The sad truth is that I couldn't be arsed to take the risk. Shame on me, I know. But knowledge is powerful, and now that I know the problem I can deal with it.

So many of my students are bright and talented, but afraid and I see my job, in some part, in leading them out of this fear and back to the joy of writing. So if any of you are reading this, hang on in there, it happens to us all, but it is possible to deal with.

Delightful evening last night having dinner with local writers group in Richmond, all of them have had varying degrees of success and failure - the ideal group to pose this problem to. They all agreed that the fear factor was ever present and yes, it wasn't just fear of failure, it was fear of success too.
One of our group signed a huge (really huge) book deal for three children's books a few years ago. She said that for weeks after signing the deal and getting her deadline she was frozen, unable to even understand what she'd already written let alone write some more!

It happens and when it does, you just have to do that 'standing by the pool' thing, hold your nose, close your eyes and jump. The water is never as cold as you imagine, and after a few desperate paddles you'll be back in the flow, feeling the sure strength of your words skim past you as you plough on, sleek, strong and happy.

So, even though I've got Jury Service for the next two weeks, I'm packing up the lap top and my notes and heading off to edit while I wait to be called.

So, come on you guys, get out of the shallows and jump in too. The water's fine.