Writing the switch back on
I feared it would happen. I even joked about it. If anyone asked me about my recent literary purple patch, I’d reply that I didn’t dare stop writing, even for a short while, for fear that whatever switch inside my head had mysteriously been flicked on, might never work again. Ever since I penned the last word of Untouchables – a collaboration with football historian, Kieran Smith - I have been gripped by a fear that I was right, my writing gear has felt jammed shut.
For decades I had dreamed of being an author without ever being able to muster anything remotely publishable. I always wanted to write fiction. I still do, but I’ve rarely produced anything that I was truly happy with. That is until I started writing about the things that I’m passionate about, politics and football.
I started blogging about 15 years ago, at the age of 40. Soon I was pouring out articles, and it wasn’t long before my ramblings were being published by others. My first book, Red Odyssey, was published in 2017, and with that I found a rhythm to my writing that has served me well ever since. Stanley Park Story – part novel, part social history of the Merseyside derby – came hot on its heels and was particularly pleasing to me because it combined my desire to invent stories, with my twin passions of politics and football.
Writing then became an obsession, and soon my family were telling me I wasn’t good to be around when I had the keyboard out. I was “somewhere else”, inattentive, distracted and often irritable. They were right.
Whenever I started writing, I became fully immersed in a way I have never experienced in any other aspect of my life. It was all consuming, but it was as isolating as it was therapeutic, as oppressive as it was liberating. And it could be exhausting. In 5 years, I produced six books and countless articles and features. I will be forever grateful to my publisher, Pitch Publishing, and to my various collaborators and the web-based outlets who have showcased my writing. But there has been a cost.
The competing priorities of a writing career, a full-time job and family life would inevitably lead to conflict, both internal and external. I’ve never believed the myth of multi-tasking. At times the day job might have suffered, sometimes it would be my personal relationships and occasionally it was both. The writing took precedence, always. If that meant my evenings and weekends were consumed by it, then so be it. In hindsight, it could never last.
When Untouchables was published it became easier to listen to those appeals from family to take a break. I even felt like I needed it. The nagging fear remained, that once I eased off that would be the end, but for the first time in five years I chose to ignore it.
In truth, I’ve managed a few articles and features of late, but where the words once flowed effortlessly, now they were being cranked out, almost one at a time. Sentences and paragraphs constantly deleted and rewritten as the confidence ebbed from me. The demons of self-doubt whispered to me, you’ve said this before, nobody wants to read this, who cares. The whole process that once energised me, now genuinely wears me out.
There are positives though, not writing so much means more time for family and for work. That meant that it was easy for days to turn into weeks and then months without penning anything significant. I admit, though, that I miss the joy of writing and how easy it once felt. Inevitably the fear that I have lost something important to me has begun to intensify.
I’ve dabbled with a change in focus. Maybe I should I try fiction; would that reenergise me? A few ideas have fought for supremacy in my head, and I’ve logged them in a folder somewhere. But the impetus to start, the drive that was once so hard to ignore remains elusive.
Even the process of producing these words has been excruciating to me. I hope they weren't as painful for you to read. If they were, I offer my sympathies and an apology. The switch is stubbornly in the off position at the minute.
The only thing I can think of to do, is to try and write it back on again. I’ll let you know how it goes.
For decades I had dreamed of being an author without ever being able to muster anything remotely publishable. I always wanted to write fiction. I still do, but I’ve rarely produced anything that I was truly happy with. That is until I started writing about the things that I’m passionate about, politics and football.
I started blogging about 15 years ago, at the age of 40. Soon I was pouring out articles, and it wasn’t long before my ramblings were being published by others. My first book, Red Odyssey, was published in 2017, and with that I found a rhythm to my writing that has served me well ever since. Stanley Park Story – part novel, part social history of the Merseyside derby – came hot on its heels and was particularly pleasing to me because it combined my desire to invent stories, with my twin passions of politics and football.
Writing then became an obsession, and soon my family were telling me I wasn’t good to be around when I had the keyboard out. I was “somewhere else”, inattentive, distracted and often irritable. They were right.
Whenever I started writing, I became fully immersed in a way I have never experienced in any other aspect of my life. It was all consuming, but it was as isolating as it was therapeutic, as oppressive as it was liberating. And it could be exhausting. In 5 years, I produced six books and countless articles and features. I will be forever grateful to my publisher, Pitch Publishing, and to my various collaborators and the web-based outlets who have showcased my writing. But there has been a cost.
The competing priorities of a writing career, a full-time job and family life would inevitably lead to conflict, both internal and external. I’ve never believed the myth of multi-tasking. At times the day job might have suffered, sometimes it would be my personal relationships and occasionally it was both. The writing took precedence, always. If that meant my evenings and weekends were consumed by it, then so be it. In hindsight, it could never last.
When Untouchables was published it became easier to listen to those appeals from family to take a break. I even felt like I needed it. The nagging fear remained, that once I eased off that would be the end, but for the first time in five years I chose to ignore it.
In truth, I’ve managed a few articles and features of late, but where the words once flowed effortlessly, now they were being cranked out, almost one at a time. Sentences and paragraphs constantly deleted and rewritten as the confidence ebbed from me. The demons of self-doubt whispered to me, you’ve said this before, nobody wants to read this, who cares. The whole process that once energised me, now genuinely wears me out.
There are positives though, not writing so much means more time for family and for work. That meant that it was easy for days to turn into weeks and then months without penning anything significant. I admit, though, that I miss the joy of writing and how easy it once felt. Inevitably the fear that I have lost something important to me has begun to intensify.
I’ve dabbled with a change in focus. Maybe I should I try fiction; would that reenergise me? A few ideas have fought for supremacy in my head, and I’ve logged them in a folder somewhere. But the impetus to start, the drive that was once so hard to ignore remains elusive.
Even the process of producing these words has been excruciating to me. I hope they weren't as painful for you to read. If they were, I offer my sympathies and an apology. The switch is stubbornly in the off position at the minute.
The only thing I can think of to do, is to try and write it back on again. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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