Waiting to pull the trigger
Partial vacuums are no fun...
…though not as debilitating as total ones! In some respects a partial vacuum is where I feel I am at the moment, writing-wise.
Perhaps I should explain. But in order to do so I need to provide a little context - and it is context which, paradoxically, is born from the best possible scenario.
A few days ago it struck me that I now have just about everything I ever wanted: super home, wonderful wife and kids, sufficient financial stability, and all the free time I could possibly want to devote to writing.
All of it.
And each of these are particularly significant to me because in one way or another I have experienced the opposite of them all - especially home and money when I was a child. And in terms of writing? It’s the only thing I have ever really wanted to do.
So what’s the problem?
Well, time and writing. And perhaps a little guilt.
I worry that I’m not making enough of my time, not doing enough writing. I fear that I’m not ‘dedicated’ enough, and - the ultimate nagging doubt - that I’m not ‘good enough’. The latter feeling is one undeniably self-inflicted as it is driven by ‘measurement’, by checking the numbers, by my inescapable desire for tangible proof of merit, for validation: I don’t sell enough books; I don’t have enough subscribers/followers; there aren’t enough people saying how much they like my work; there are too many rejections from agents and competitions etcetera etcetera. We’ve probably all been there. Or are still there.
And time?
Make no mistake, I have a lot going on. I’m currently working on edits for a new poetry collection based on my Grimsby Docks photographs; I should be be publishing 17 Alma Road around February/March (unless a divine agent intervenes!); I am building up a little stash of new short stories; I am investing heavily in my Substack; and under the Coverstory books umbrella, I’m pulling together two anthologies for 2024 publication.
A lot then. Yet it still feels like a partial vacuum because I’m missing that ‘big project’ in which to absorb myself - and that means a new novel. Over the last few days I’ve pulled out the 31k words of something I abandoned in the summer just to see if it deserves a second chance, even though I know it probably doesn’t. And I know that because I’m certain I can do better. Partly that’s because it feels a little too much like I’d just be ‘churning the handle’ - and partly because I have this sense (and I always have this sense!) that there is a great idea just bubbling under the surface.
Make no mistake, this isn’t ‘writer’s block’; I’m still writing - and I don’t believe in writers’ block anyway. But it is ‘a thing’…
I feel primed, with an itchy trigger finger. I just need something to shoot at. In the interim I’ll keep plugging away. I want to feel as if I’m in total control, but the longer I don’t (and this may be nothing more than a veneer I’m applying to myself!), the louder those nagging negative measures become.
Who knows, maybe that tip-of-the-tongue idea will show itself this evening, or maybe an email will arrive tomorrow from an agent who wants to take on 17 Alma Road… Of the two, oddly enough I think I may hope more for the former…