It's about time I gave myself a Damned Good Talking To

See that up there?  The blog-banner?  It clearly says "WRITING STUFF" doesn't it?  So why am I not doing what it says on the packet and just getting on with it?  I've given myself so many 'excuses/reasons' that I've actually NOW run out of them...

"I'm waiting for those Agents to get back to me" - what, so you're just going to sit about with your hands under your arse until one of them gives you the Nod are you?  And what if neither of them get back to you this side of June, what then?  Or what if they both get back to you and say 'NO' - are you just going to fling your arms up (from under the arse, obvs) and cave in or are you going to shift some butt RIGHT NOW and get on with your works-in-progress *snort* so that at least you actually HAVE something else to show them?

"It's too late.  I'm too old for all of this, I should have started taking it seriously aged 26 instead of getting drunk and partying at every opportunity" - You had your first story published at 18 and an invitation from a magazine to discuss future commissions at 20... you blew it, kid. But you also KNEW it back then too.  And actually what all that partying did was give you WAY more material to use for when you DID start taking it seriously.  Remember that time you hit a guy so hard at a night club you sent him flying down three flights of stairs and you got banned for three months?  THAT's what I'm talking about.  Now write it!

"There's no space for me out there in publishing land.  It's all been done before, by writers who have far more pizazz,  nouce and spunk than I'm ever likely to have"  Everyone has something different to say - maybe about the same thing but a different WAY of saying it, telling it.  You're right, you're no different or more special than any of the other published writers Out There, but there's no other Debs Riccio that I can see (or Google) so why shouldn't there be a space?  Isn't there space enough for everybody who has something to say?

"The stairs need hoovering, the family need feeding and there's beds to be made." Yeah, right.
 

"I don't believe in myself" That's more like it.  This is fine.  It's understandable.  It's scary, freaky and it's not exactly the simplest of ambitions to pursue and succeed in, is it? It means a lot of dedication, hard work and discipline.  Things that don't come easy to you - especially since God invented Facebook and Twitter and all other manner of distractions.  These are tests of your mettle. And the confidence thing is universal.  Show me an entertainer who doesn't doubt themselves at times and I'll show you a  bit of a Fibber.

"But the hoovering....." See above, girl.   Now just get on with it, you're starting to bore me now.

Normal Service Will Be Resumed...

There’s a common conception amongst writers that there’s really no such thing as ‘writer’s block’. And it’s true. There isn’t. Look at this for proof. I’m writing. I’m just not writing what I oughta be. That’s the difference. Today I’ve written a mini-shopping list, a letter excusing the Girl from PE and a couple of comments on a couple of sites (not even Facebook, miraculously).
I’ve written stuff in my head in the bathroom – where ideas scream nearly as vociferously as the shower blast competing with the extractor fan at 6.45 in the morning – and I’ve written scenes in my head whilst at the very not-rocket-science paid job. Oh, I’ve also written two text messages and praised myself for remaining within the character limits for a one-pager whilst spelling everything correctly and using perfect punctuation and grammar to shame Stephen Fry. It’s sad, I know. But writing’s in my soul. And though it DOES matter that I can’t find the word inside me to continue with either book I'm currently writing, I know that even if they both remain at a standstill for the time being, this too will pass and the words will come. As these words have come. See?
See me blog.

OMG! WTF! Am Writing!

As regulars will have gleaned, recently I have been experiencing what I can only describe as a slump of near-catastrophic proportions. I compare it with gamely attempting to scale the north side of the highest mountain of treacle whilst wearing welly-boots and not a whole lot else. And without the Kendal mint cake.
But this evening, after a good old fashioned but very gently aimed arse-kick from my lovely fellow-writer Michele (everyone home should have one) and great advice from Fionnuala I have sat at the scary box and drummed out 1087 words. Which is good for recently. In fact recently I've been deleting more than adding. Which is pants, frankly.
If I want to die unpublished and unfulfilled then I know what (not) to do. But I don't.
There are probably morals, quotes I should be trying to find to illustrate precisely what I'm trying to say, but at 74,000 words and finding everything getting thrillier (see - I can still make words up!) by the second, I am on that helter-skelter of prose that means my fingers can't cope with the amount of literary sh*t that's trying to escape my overwrought brain with every misplaced apostrophe (sorry, Bege).
Don't stop me now - I'm having such a good time!
Of course this won't stop the hideous procrastination, I bet.

Writer's Block? Nar.. more like Writer's "Meh"...

My WIP - tentatively titled "Clowns to the Left" - has amassed 72,000 words. Something I started on 12th February this year, has used up 9,774 minutes of my life and has undergone 77 revisions. (love the 'properties' icon - great tool for any slightly OCD tendencies and of course a great procrastinatory tool). Now I've got through the heady beginnings and lain my foundations, shot headlong into the cut and thrust of the whole shebang and peered about at the carnage that my idea has wreaked... I am now either bored with the whole thing or scared of it all ending.
I just can't seem to whip up any enthusiasm for it any longer.
I read back and still love my characters even though one is a spineless arrogant user who's sleeping with his wife's best friend (not my usual fluffy chicklit thang). But all I seem to want to do is start a new one. And I've already written the first 600 words of it, too.
All I can see in my mind is my mother waggling her finger of disappointment at me and saying "you always start something and never see it through, young lady, that's your trouble." Gulp.
Mind you, she'd never have believed I'd already written two novels. But then she wouldn't have thought they 'counted' as they're not proper, published books. Pleasing my mother was always the most difficult thing in the world to get right. So why should I care now she's no longer around?
It's that still, small voice of dejection, isn't it? The one that says 'you're just wasting time you could otherwise be spending in more useful pursuits, like gardening, housekeeping, wife-ing, mother-ing, working...' things that were important to her.
Writing is important to me. And were it not for the fact that I thankfully belong to porbably the best writer's group in the universe, I would cheerfully be following Susan Boyle into the nearest Hotel for the Marginally Misunderstood clutching my not-the-full-ticket as I go.
I'll get over it. I always do. It's the getting through it that's the toughie.