It’s terrifying the way the year speeds on its mad way without my really getting back into the writing routine. Okay, so maybe not terrifying. Terrifying is probably an adjective better associated with really bad stuff like wars, tsunamis, earthquakes. Blogger Mia Freedman talks about ‘First world problems’ – a neat recognition that although we have a right to talk about our problems, we have no right to compare them with what probably the majority of the world’s people endure every damn day. And this is definitely a first world problem.
So, I’ll start again. It’s scary how we are almost half way through March and my spurt of enthusiasm that resulted in many thousands of words being written in the last quarter of 2010 still hasn’t reappeared.
I always take January off. That’s fine, in fact it’s a good discipline, I reckon, to take a complete break from writing over the lovely slow month of summer holidays.
But then suddenly it’s February – this shouldn’t surprise me, but it does, and there’s a list of start of school tasks (for the last time ever this year) and getting everybody organised again and work plunges back into busyness and I’m tired and have a nap on my writing day instead of composing another chapter.
There are medical appointments that seem to eat up an entire morning, and the dentist reminds me I haven’t been for at least a year, my dad and step mum are arriving soon to stay for a month which is lovely and I can’t wait, but it’s also a brilliant excuse for continuing to avoid doing any writing of substance. By the time they head back to Scotland, it’ll be Easter.
But by Easter, in fact by the middle of April, I’ll have no excuses anymore, or none that will work, anyway. Because, starting mid April, I have an entire, terrifying, wonderful year of fortnightly DEADLINES. And a deadline is a wonderful thing.
Last October I attended a week-long writing workshop with Canadian writing teacher Barbara Turner-Vessalago. It was the second time I'd done one of her courses, and it resulted in my digging out the crappy novel manuscript I first started 13 years ago and giving it a burl. Not just tweaking and fiddling, as I’d tried to do so many times before, always petering out in frustration, but actually taking the entire thing and rewriting it – inspired by Barbara’s skill at helping her students tap into their imagination.
From then until I got busy with Christmas, I continued to churn out reworked chapters, chapters that each had more life in them than the entire, tired, flat, dull old novel did.
I was determined to finish it – regardless of the herculean task of getting a first novel published in Australia. It was just something I had to do.
Wisely, knowing my own immense talent for procrastination, I signed up for a 12 month mentorship with Barbara, starting mid April 2011 (yes, I know, that is only four weeks away).
The way it works is that every two weeks I send her a few thousand words by email. She reads them, marks them up in the way that I have learnt about, comments and emails them back. By which time – if not before – it’s time to send the next instalment winging through cyberspace to Canada, or wherever Barbara is weaving her magic at the time.
Three to four thousand words a fortnight is perfectly manageable. But every fortnight for a whole year? What about September, when I’m event managing a big conference? What about the mad, pre-Christmas rush? Or January, where I am deeply committed being a lazy slob ?
Scary stuff. But at the same time, wonderful. Because if there’s one thing that gets me going, it’s a deadline. And self-imposed deadlines are good, but the fear of letting someone else down is a much better incentive to produce some writing, whatever else is going on in my life.
For a month now I have been planning to start the process – to get ahead, get a few chapters down so that the wheels won’t fall off if I get sick or busy or something unexpected happens along the line. But I haven’t written a word. Because it’s not a really truly deadline.
Once the real deadline looms, however, I’ll be pounding that keyboard like there’s no tomorrow. I don’t honestly know if I’ll ever get the novel Mark II completed – much less if it’ll be anything other than the inadequate rubbish it is now. But the only way I’ll get close to achieving this is by the imposition of those wonderful things. Deadlines.