Future Clues and Past Excuses
“It’s been a long and twisting case. Nearly two years incognito, following leads and committing to the legwork. All the usual stuff: research, writing, and more research; editing, editing, and editing again. But now it’s finally coming together. I can feel it, like a flash fire burning through my brain. A couple more months and I can nail this bad boy to the wall.”
Wow. Has it really been almost a year since I last posted on here?
Firstly, apologies for my absence but it’s been a very busy year and, as often seems the case at this time of life, 52 weeks feels like little more than 52 days.
So what have I been up to in that time?
Most importantly, I’ve been working on a new sci-fi mystery novel – hints above, but keep your (a) eyes peeled for more on that very soon.
I’ve also been critting, and getting my own writing critted, at a local writing group that I joined soon after moving here in Summer 2022. It’s one of the most important decisions I’ve made for my writing recently. Since finishing my MA Creative Writing I’ve had no other writers to read and give feedback on my work. Scribbles has changed all that.
As well as writing I’ve taken on extra days of work at ARU. Among other things, this has given me time to interview even more of their incredible creative students, alumni and staff about their own inspirational journeys through education and the creative industries.
Oh, and I’ve also learned to drive, passing my test at the first attempt earlier this year. (Sounds impressive but I must have done almost 100 hours of practice all told!)
But surely I could have fitted in the odd blog or more updates on social media too? Well, another new thing I’ve discovered is the excellent Home for Fiction website and blog by fellow writer Chris Angelis. He has a knack of blogging about the kind of things I think about in a much better way than I could put them myself. And not to pass the buck but he recently considered the importance of enjoying your art, which made me reflect on what I enjoy doing and what I don’t.
I do enjoy my art. I love writing fiction. I love creating designs for my covers, and other artwork relating to them. I also enjoy escaping into other people’s art and creative outputs – books, video, music, games. Perhaps more than is helpful in terms of my time use!
But what I really don’t enjoy is feeling like I need to write something just to keep people’s attention on me - and this extends to social media posts as well as blogs. Sure, I enjoy sharing my writing (when it’s ready to be shared), but I don’t hugely enjoy writing about my ongoing process or my knowledge of the craft - and definitely not the minutiae of my daily life, as so many other people seem quite happy to do nowadays.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in a world with the internet and social media. Maybe it’s because I’m an introverted HSP, and also suffer badly from impostor syndrome. Or maybe it’s because I spend my work days creating digital copy and content to market someone else’s products, and don’t have the headpsace to spend my leisure time marketing my own too.
Hell, there’s no maybe about it. It’s all of those things!
But I’ll soon be posting more than usual again because I’m very excited about the new book I’m working on (and close to finishing), and I’m very much looking forward to sharing that with you all.
For now though I’ll just share a random short story instead – one I wrote a few years ago now – to make up for my absence and prove that I do actually write other things. I just don’t feel a pressing need to share everything I do with everyone else all the time. I know – weird, right?
I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, because there are about twenty others I’m hoping to collect together and release in an anthology at some point - once I’ve finished writing, releasing and banging on about my current (and I’ll say it again, very exciting) new project!