Tired imagination – fighting the writing
Yesterday I spent a grand total of three hours asleep due to working the dreaded night shifts. After a nice family orientated afternoon out I decided to try and tap-out the next chapter in Whispering Shadows which was met shall we say with some…..resistance.
Three times I wrote the opening paragraphs of what is set to be “chapter 4”. 500 words, deleted all, re-wrote, deleted all and then re-wrote again. By the time I got to the third attempt I could tell then that my words were not flowing. It was too difficult to engage fingers from brain. I could see an idea of how I wanted to take the chapter but no matter what the words seemed laboured and a very poor representation of exactly what I was trying to put across.
Frustration then set in – I know that frustrated writing is a very bad mindset to be in.
Reluctantly I closed Word and left the book alone for the night. It’s always hard, I’m one of those types of people that is naturally hard on myself. Failures aren’t simple things and I always put that added pressure on doing the best I can and if it’s not the best then I am very quick to get critical. Needless to say it was a time of thinking if I should bother etc (a little like a petulant child I know). Well having left the book alone for the rest of the night I decided after my Saturday morning gym session and pre-swimming with my youngest son I would try and see if I could pick up where my tired imagination left off yesterday.
In the absence of free flowing ideas I noted a few ideas. Planned myself where character arcs were intended to interact and cross within the story and suddenly my imagination woke up. Needless to say I managed to juggle (with the awesome aid of split-screen function on the laptop) to finish chapter 4’s first draft whilst also watching a cheeky episode of Strike Back.
That got me to thinking how that series was born of a Chris Ryan book. And so my activated imagination then moved on from the story to the world of “what ifs”. What if a studio executive read my book and liked it, what if Sky looked for new series, what if……and then I remembered, what if I actually sold more copies. It’s fine to dream but also there has to be a solid grounding in reality Fun as it is to dream of a fantastical future it’s also important to take things at a realistic pace.
So now I will simply focus my attention on promoting myself, get my book out there and see what interest and buzz I can generate. The GoodReads Giveaway is going well, Twitter followers and Facbook followers continue to grow steadily and tweets seem to be spreading the idea out there. I have decided to offer a free day in the future so that the Kindle edition can get out there to a wider audience. It’s a difficult thing to give it away but it makes sense as it is not about making money, it is more about getting my story out there. The more people that read it the more chance I have of one day being “discovered”.
So on that note tomorrow being Sunday 21st February 2016 and a good day for reading, for that day alone Footprints On The Other Side will be available on Amazon Kindle Only for a measly……NOTHING. The book will be free for that singular day so those who need a new book or else something to escape the mundane reality of everyday life then give this a try.
