A week in the life of a reluctant novelist

Question: Did I write?

I have a writing plan.

In September I joined a year long membership with

Helen Jane Campbell

called Write the Book. I knew I needed a nudge (read shove) to start writing the novel that’s been chattering away in my head. The idea’s been evolving for a while, but I need structure, accountability and maybe a little validation.

In Helen’s words Write the Book is:

“…a unique year-long coaching and mentoring programme for authors-to-be. On the first Tuesday of each month you'll meet a different expert for an informal Q & A. And as well as these monthly Zoom sessions, you'll receive regular emails and the option to be part of a lively, supportive, WhatsApp group.”

On our last call I finally bit the bullet and felt brave enough to share the premise of my book and it was brilliantly received. As someone who still craves external validation it was a massive boost and gave me the impetus to really get cracking with writing the actual book

She says…

The writing plan

Get up at 6.30am, take the dog out for her ablutions, make a pot of tea, write for 1 hour, which should take me to around 8am for a quick dog walk before getting to my desk for a day of work. That hour should enable me to get down 1500 words - free writing, no stress, no bother.

Then come the weekends where I’ll be reading back, editing and moving bits around. The style of the novel is epistolary, mainly a journal although framed as letters to someone who has recently died, interspersed with voice notes, emails, letters etc. I haven’t decided if it’s going to be chronological or not…I feel the need to write it then piece it together. Or at least to start with and then, I’m hopeful once I’m around a quarter of the way through (25k words) I’ll know where it’s going. IF I can even make it to 25k.

Monday: FAIL

We were supposed to be heading to town as the dog was booked for a dental but instead we’re stuck on the island as the boat has broken. Didn’t write as I was too busy waiting to hear from the ferries and clock watching for when the vet opened.

Tuesday: FAIL

Managed to get up by 6:40am but by the time I’d cuddled the dog, let her out, washed up, made the tea and fart arsed about on Instagram it was 7:40am and I really needed to get cracking with editing that email I want to send this morning. My day job is as a Virtual Assistant & traditional email marketing nerd - not sending emails to my list could be quite damaging!

Wednesday: FAIL

Wasn’t ‘feeling it’ which is a poor excuse, a nothing excuse.

Thursday: PASS

Writing no, but I started reading back through some of what I’d written and edited. I’ve realised that this is probably step one as I first put fingers to keyboard on 4th October and so I had no recollection of what I’d written! The next step is to print off the 13 pages, the 5800 words, and see if any of it makes sense and if it is starting to create a framework. My approach has been to write what comes into my head at that specific point and so it’s currently in random passages that need to be ordered to allow me to see how the story progresses.

This is NOTHING like my living room, but thanks AI!

Friday: FAIL

Today was a different kind of day as we headed to town to get Kiki’s booster done, the dental is postponed until the end of the month. The boat replacement service/relief ferry is teeny tiny and so we had to get the 7:10am - the appointment was at 10.30am. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the fact it took a 7.5hr round trip for a 10 minute appointment or that for almost 5 of those hours I was outside in the fresh air with the dog on account of her not liking being in the car, being near other dogs or people, or being able to sit calmly in a cafe. And I won’t mention the fact that it rained for a solid hour early on in the day. Needless to say, no writing was done but we did enjoy roasting ourselves by the fire at home from 3pm!

Saturday and Sunday: FAIL

Let’s just bundle this all into one now.

Weekends aren’t for 6:30am wake up calls unless you are woken by incessant whinging. Kiki seems to go through phases of being settled and quiet during the night, refusing to go to bed in the first place and hanging out in my office instead or serenading us from about 5:30am. We’ve just come out of a lovely spell of her being settled, so I hope this doesn’t spiral in her refusing to go to bed, although that is usually coupled with stronger winds and everything seems to have calmed down for now. On really stormy nights, especially if we have thunder, we relent and she sleeps with us.

But that’s no excuse for not writing or editing or brainstorming or mapping out the story. Nonetheless, nothing was done. And full disclosure, I am spending my Monday morning writing this rather than doing anything for the book.

There’s a part of me that clearly feels scared to write it but another part is screaming, just write the damn thing and get it done. At this stage I’m not sure if I care whether it’s good or not (I lie, of course I care) but I would really like to get it out of my system.

Now it’s Sunday again and this week was even more off kilter.

My parents had the audacity to die quite close to the other’s birthday and last week was one of the two tough week’s of the year. It would have been Mum’s 78th birthday on Tuesday 18th - it’s been almost 6 years since I was last able to give her a hug, tell her I love her and take the piss out her. Then Dad died very unexpectedly 3 years ago on 22nd February and what I wouldn’t give to have one more moment with him.

It’s amazing how quickly we put things out of our minds, I didn’t think the birthdays and anniversaries affected me too much, but this week was hard. My brain was foggy, my body ached, I slept badly and had a low level headache accompanying me. And then I remembered the other anniversaries, like Dad’s first anniversary where I felt like I was on the cusp of a panic attack almost all day.

Grief is a bitch.

So, in answer to the question: did I write?

Technically yes, but not the book.

So we try again tomorrow…