Saturday 8 December 2012

Catch up...

It’s been a while…it’s been a long while, actually. I have been writing and writing, sheaves of paper collecting in drifts like the bronze October leaves on my lawn; I just haven’t been posting.

Sometimes I get anxious about writing for an ‘audience’. Usually when I’m experiencing a blue mood, the beginnings of a dip or depression. I get fretful about my writing being seen (for someone who wants, very desperately, to be a writer, this is obviously an obstacle I need to surmount at some point). I tell myself that my prose is shabby and self-indulgent, my thoughts dull…and who do I think I am, anyway, thinking that anyone would even be interested in what I have to say?

I think all writers experience an element of this dread and self-doubt. Sometimes I am able to deal with it quite capably, and write through my fear and misgivings. Other times, my lack of faith is crippling – these last few weeks have been a prime example of the latter.

It didn’t help that I was unsure of my employment situation (I had to re-apply for own job due to an internal restructure) and for a time, it looked likely that I would be made redundant right around Christmas (thankfully, I was offered the job, so that’s one less thing to worry about). It also didn’t help that I was super-stressed about my trip to Paris with The Sister – I was worried about spending a prolonged period of time, just the two of us, in close proximity, as she tends to be spiky and snappy, and I am hypersensitive at the best of times. (Thankfully, that worked out okay, too – god bless Paris in December for being so beautiful that it’s impossible to be negative). It’s just felt like an ever-accumulating mountain of stresses, and my writing reflected that – I felt like I’d be inflicting my whining on people if I shared my writing, so I simply kept it to myself.

Now I’m coming out of the other side of the dip, I can see that that was the very time I should have been frequently posting – working my issues through and receiving feedback and support from this lovely little community. Will someone please remind me of this if I disappear again at some future juncture? I sometimes need a little nudge J

One good thing – the book I have been trying to write this last year, and which until now has been little more than a gradual amassing of scribblings, musings and turns of phrase, has finally begun to assume a real shape. I’m still a long way from being finished, but to have a coherent thread is such an amazing feeling. And I’m not riding the wave of some temporary momentum, either – it’s been slow but consistent for the last few months, and for the first time, I can actually envision it as complete at some point rather than a forever-ongoing pet project. Which makes me very, very, very happy.

On a related note: I know there are a lot of other writers out there in this blog community…do any of you have any experience with publishers? Or the publishing process? What about self-publishing? I know that the latter used to be seen as a sort of vanity thing, but I’m wondering whether that’s changing now with the huge successes of initially self-published fiction like the Fifty Shades series, and the Amanda Hocking books. Thoughts?

Looking forward to writing in the coffee-house tomorrow, followed by Christmas films and mulled wine in the evening with my friend Sarah, and then lunch with an old friend I don’t see very often on Sunday. It also hit me this morning that it’s Christmas in a little over two weeks, so I shall be festooning the house with glitter and fairylights at some point, too!.

How about you? xxx







































1 comment:

  1. Hey Cheryl,

    I can relate to this a lot
    I have always had a love of books but it wasn't until I started writing my blog a few months ago that I discovered a love for writing
    Like you I am always scribbling and my dream is to put all of my experiences in to a book
    I have started writing it but I have a fear that it is gobbeldy-gook

    Writing has helped me more than all my doctors combined. It helps me make sense of things that don't make sense.

    You write beautifully so you don't have to worry about that

    Take care x

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