Kick up the backside

It strikes me as funny that I can dish out advice to someone who’s struggling with their writing – not platitudes - but something I’m sure will get them going again. But when it comes to my own crises of confidence I’m not so quick to take my own pill.

I think it’s relatively simple though… and my advice was:

Write. Write anything. Have your characters brush their teeth if it makes you put words on the page. None of it is final, is it?

I KNOW that the action of writing puts my brain into the place where I begin to … well, do whatever it is that I need to do to create the words, tell the story.

Hmmm, that’s progress. I remember a while ago saying that I knew how to get there with art (particularly life drawing – that gets me to the creative place quicker than anything) but that I didn’t know if I’d got there with writing… Then suddenly, look up there, I wrote “I KNOW that the action of writing puts my brain into the place…” And it’s true, I do know it and I have been there. It’s the place where the time passes faster than in reality.

There’s been some good news too, which has given me another kick up the backside. I am not at liberty to pass it on but if you’re a novel racer, you can go to the private blog to find out. (If you haven’t got access to it because you haven’t been on one of our meets, then email me and I will issue you with an invitation.) But sorry, non novel racers, you’ll have to just wonder.