From a Little Whinging to…

…A Little Apology for the last post. Everyone likes a moan. I think it’s cathartic, and it’s helped bring a brighter perspective. So I apologise for seeming a bit antsy. Firstly the reason for the whinge…

At the moment I’m involved in my least favourite part of the publishing process: checking the typeset proofs. Some authors might see this as their favourite part – the final step before seeing the book in print, and hell if the sight of those ISBN numbers aren’t just a little giddying, especially on a debut book. But get past this and things get a little frustrating.

It’s all psychological really. I’ve re-read The Hoard of Mhorrer about 12 times, and I’ve spent a lot of time ensuring there were few typos or spelling errors in the text. So when you go through the typeset proofs discovering errors that you think you’ve removed the last time around, you question your own sanity until you discover they’re not your mistakes at all but have occurred during the typesetting - and then you start chewing on your own fist through sheer despair.
For example, when you’ve spent six or seven drafts checking that “dismounted” is spelt properly to find that someone has spelt it “dimouled”, you can be forgiven for moaning.

So I’m carrying on with the proof-reading, occasionally chewing on my knuckles, taking a few breaks where I can and coming back to it with renewed objectivity. Frustration is part of the game, and I shouldn’t be so surprised as I felt the same with The Secret War. I guess I wouldn’t make a good editor – I don’t have the patience.
Errors apart though, the typesetter's done a good job and the text on the whole looks wonderful.

So that’s the reason behind the moan. And now for the cure…

Part of the current problem has been the lack of time to do anything creative, and that still stands, regardless of proof-reading. So Sarah and I have sat down to look at finances, the time we get to spend together and what time I need for writing. Sarah has been more than accommodating (it was actually Sarah who said I should start writing part-time). She’s been incredibly supportive – as ever – of my writing, and between us we’ve worked out I can drop a day a week to concentrate on the writing. The second party to be considerate and completely supportive, is my employer who has just agreed my change in working pattern.

So from January next year (I want to get Christmas out of the way before my pay-cheque takes a hit) I’ll be a part-time writer. It won’t mean an increase in productivity – I’ll still be writing the same amount each week as I am now – but it just safeguards that output for the future. It means that whatever happens from January onwards, I’ll be able to put aside half a dozen hours a week (at least) to spend on my writing. It means I can spend some time with family and friends without thinking I should really be at the laptop writing. It means I can spend more time with Sarah – who I’ve neglected of late.

It means my writing will be guilt-free. And I think that’s all any writer can ask for, and even then, seldom gets.

So whinging over – I know, I’m bloody lucky, really…

Just when I thought…

Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged, but I have my reasons. I’m knee-deep in proofs for The Hoard of Mhorrer, with about a two week turnaround, so things are hectic. Hectic enough to feel like this “break” from writing is rapidly diminishing. And it’s also become stressful at work for the first time in about 10 years. Not great. So I haven’t been blogging for a while. And probably won’t be for the next two weeks.

Not unusual, I guess. But there are reasons, like I said.

David Isaak’s post over on the Macmillan New Writer’s blog has caught me at a bad time, because I’ve been honest about my feelings and perhaps these are only temporary feelings, perhaps not. We’ll see after the next two weeks. The fact of the matter is, is that I’m drowning in responsibilities. I have too many: to my wife, to my friends, to my employers, and now Macmillan, and I suppose to this blog as well. The juggling act is getting a bit much, as more balls are thrown in, and not just squishy red ones, but barbed balls with razor wire covering their edges. I’ll get through it all, because it’s the sort of methodical person I am, but these last weeks have taught me enough to know that next year, unless I can find more time, things must change.

Firstly, this blog will almost definitely be wound up and will be used as archived material only. Secondly I’ll be looking to hand over the admin reigns of the Macmillan New Writers blog at some point next year. David is the co-admin but I’m not going to dump it all on him.
And then we’ll have to look at the writing. The writing is okay at the moment, I still enjoy it. The other side, i.e. editing, proofing, publicising etc will need to be looked at more closely. For the Hoard of Mhorrer I won’t be going forth and doing appearances in January and February as I did for The Secret War unless both books suddenly become bestsellers. I simply won’t have time for it. And the financial returns for that invested time are negligible – as someone told me recently, I’m not being “cost effective.”

And there it is. Time. The enemy of everything, it appears at the moment. It’s not, as one Jean Luc Picard said that it’s a companion through life, more that Time seems to rule everyone around you and you are therefore ruled by them. Deadlines. Deadlines. Deadlines. Next year I can hit those deadlines if I can free up more time. That means seriously looking at going part-time in the day-job which now relies on how the books sell, as a recession means any cut in wages has to be supplanted by royalties. I have too many responsibilities to do it any other way – and I’m not unique either; many published writers are under the same pressures and have been for many, many years.

So what about the future?
As I said in the MNW blog comment, I’ll still be writing for sure. Writing is like a class A drug to me. I can’t contemplate a time when I won’t be writing. But being published? Well, we’ll just have to see, but I think that make or break period is coming around the corner…