I’m not a new year’s resolution kind of guy. January always seems like the absolute worst time to throw yourself into something new and make promises to yourself: it’s cold, it’s dark and, for me at least, can often seem like a test of endurance to just make it through to longer, milder days. Forget winter; nothing energises me like the sun, and we certainly don’t get enough of that in the UK all year round, never mind in January.
What the winter period does present, however, is a decent chunk of time off work. For the past three, I’ve used the pre-Christmas period to plot and get started on writing. In 2021/22 it was The Boy to Beat the Gods; 2022/23 was the first draft of my next standalone middle grade title. I like to gain momentum and discipline during the winter holiday that I can take into the new year, rather than starting afresh in January when we’re about to head back to a busy work period. However, this winter didn’t quite work out like that…
I had a whole two weeks off in which I was planning to make headway on the redraft of the next book. But on the very first day of my leave I woke up feeling unwell to the point where I was in bed for most of those first couple of days, and with such a banging headache that I couldn’t write, read or even just sit and passively watch TV. The illness ended up lasting almost a month, which annoyed me greatly because I’m an active person in general, but more so because my progress on the redraft had been poor as a consequence.
Added to that, this manuscript has given me a number of headaches in the thirteen or so months I’ve worked on it. Sometimes a story just comes out easily, other times you’ll feel like the potential is there within reach, but a door needs to be unlocked to get to it. You know the project has the potential to be great, but something on the page is stopping that from happening.
There have been a number of these points, these locked doors, with this manuscript. I think part of the issue has been that in the past I could set aside a manuscript for months, years even, and let ideas marinate over time then come back to it knowing what I need to change. But you have no such luxury when you’re working to a contracted delivery date. It means sometimes you just have to push through and carve out space to think, tear down, build back up. With discipline and obsessive organisation, I’ve managed that.
Another factor of my struggles has been directly comparing the writing experience to writing what’ll be my debut this year: The Boy to Beat the Gods. That one was an absolute joy the whole way through, and when I didn’t get the same feeling consistently for drafting the next book, I worried. Is this going to live up to the first? Do I still have it? What happens if I can’t unlock the potential by the submission deadline? But then I also told myself that ideas for my debut had about five years to percolate while I did other things. It wasn’t perfect to begin with. So I kept the faith that I could deliver on the promise of my next story. My first critic is always myself, and I’m a harsh one. I wasn’t really happy with where I was at just a few weeks ago. But I ploughed on and gradually unlocked the final door I needed to.
I felt like because I was feeling well again and was being active again, my creative capacity increased. I was waking early to write again rather than needing recovery sleep (I’m an optimal early bird writer), and the ideas for improving the draft kept coming and were exciting me. Now the redraft is in a very good place – in my eyes anyway. Of course it’s never the finished item you hand over to your editor but at least it will be something that I believe in 100% and can’t wait to further elevate.
I’ll be glad to bid cold, dark January goodbye and to embrace the lighter mornings, longer days and the promise I now make to myself to keep this momentum going.
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