I’m sorry… I’m very drunk

So I got ill for a while. Then I was recovering and catching up on all my client work. Then… well, where the hell have I been?

My twitter friends have been wondering about my absence, and when I have popped in briefly to reassure them that I’m not dead (please don’t put me on the cart) they’ve been reacting like I’ve been gone for ages.

And by my standards, I have been gone for ages, so I thought the least I should do is explain where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been in post-apocalyptic London.

When I was recovering from the latest bout of illness, I felt a reluctance to immerse myself right back into my intense online writing schedule, and even my online socialising. Catching up on work was a struggle, it’s true, but I also felt like I just needed a bit of quiet time.

Whilst I love Twitter and my online life, it does also drain me. It leeches away time in tiny little bursts, but also attention – there are just so many interesting and lovely people that I know online now, all doing such lovely and interesting things that I feel like a child walking through a fun fair every day. You all know how tired kids get after a day at the fair, right?

Trying my best to look after myself a bit better, I decided to give myself a break. I was writing 2,000 words or so of stories to publish on the blog every week, plus writing thousands of words for clients every week and also short stories for my club (which have also been paused lately). As a result I was producing a lot of flash fictions and short stories, but the sequel to 20 Years Later simply wasn’t getting written. I was lucky to get more than 5,000 words down a month, and that simply wasn’t good enough for me, or the book.

When I stopped everything else and just recovered, the story that kept coming back to me was book two. Yes, I occasionally thought about Mickey and the Split Worlds, but Titus and Zane and Erin were shouting the loudest.

So I began to write it again. Just quietly, no Twitter, no blogging, and thought I’d aim for 1,000 words a day in the Ray Bradbury tradition.

Since then, I have become fully immersed in the world again. Writing a novel is completely different to writing an online weekly serial. Many might say “Well, duh!” but I don’t mean in terms of required word counts or differing schedules, I mean immersion.

Not allowing myself to be fully immersed in my novel’s world meant that it was so much harder to start writing it again. Every time I set aside for it, half of it was spent getting back to the mindset I was in when I last planned out some chapters. Stopping and starting, leaping between different worlds just wasn’t working for me.

When I wrote 20 Years Later, the first draft was finished in 26 days. I was writing anywhere between 3-4000 words a day, but my life at the time was very different. I was a psychology teacher during exam time, so I had exam invigilation duties that gave me time to daydream and plot. I had an hour commute each way into London and back, again, all time to be in the world.

I wasn’t a professional copywriter, so all my writing muscle’s energy went into the book. I also didn’t have a son, nor was I the sole breadwinner for my family.

I assumed I would never be able to have that intense writing experience again. I was wrong.

You see, I realised a while ago that even though I had decided to shelve plans to build my copywriting business and just focus on keeping current clients and building my writing career instead, the decision hadn’t filtered down to my daily work routine.

Anxiety disorder- induced thinking was making me plan my day around clients that I was terrified of not doing enough work for, when that was just crazy. They are happy, I work very hard, but it’s not where my full energy and focus needs to be every day in terms of my writing.

When I realised how much my anxiety was controlling my life and schedule, I changed my day completely. I write my novel first now, then I do client work. No loss of quality to the client work – it’s a completely different type of writing – but a massive increase in my novel progress as I am signalling to my brain that it’s a priority.

I am also keeping myself in that world. Every moment I’m not actively concentrating on something else, my brain is writing, just waiting for the next time my hands can do that too.

Now I am drunk though. The book has its own momentum, the characters are swept up in their stories and the sequel is hammering along to its finish. I’ve gone from writing 1000 words a day to 2500 or more, and that itch, that desperate compulsion to write is still not satisfied.

Only the need to keep my clients happy pulls me away. I do the work, I see my family, then I am writing again. I am drunk I tell you, I am only partially in this world.

And it is glorious.

I’ve put a cute little widget up on the right hand side that enables me to track my daily writing – like a micro blog for my novel. If you click on it you can see what I’ve been doing every day. So if you’re wondering why I haven’t written a flash for a while, or why I haven’t been on Twitter for days, that’s the place to look.

I’m into the last 10-15 chapters of book two, and it’s like I’m riding a stallion. Nothing can stop it, and I am just holding on for dear life, enjoying the thrilling ride. I can see the world, hear the characters  speaking, I just have to turn up and write it all down. And you know, it’s almost effortless. The only thing that’s hard is tearing myself away.

I feel that’s the right way to write, and the right way to live my life. Nothing makes me feel as calm and content as writing down all the stories in my head. The story of 20 Years Later has been in my head for many, many years. I just have to get it out. Until then, I’m afraid I won’t be around as much, but you will be getting a sequel as compensation in time.

So that’s why I’ve been quiet lately. Bear with me and my compulsion to write, please.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

Ray Bradbury

Reality cannot destroy me at the moment. It barely exists.

Tagged as: 20 Years Later, drunk on writing, Ray Bradbury