Of course, pride and ego are funny things and they get in the way of clear thinking. They let you believe, that you're the exception. The wild and amazing exception that means you'll get accepted by your first agent on Monday, sell a three book deal on Tuesday and by Wednesday be fending off countless festival invitations. It doesn't happen that way of course, and like every writer before me, I'm in that awful limbo stage. I've written a book, I'm sending it off to agents and I'm waiting for feedback from friends and family. I knew this stage was coming, I was warned - keep your head down, keep writing, don't let the silence and stillness fool you into stopping.
Admittedly, I've been fooled. You see, I was itching to get rolling onto second book and start writing the fantastic scenes I could see in my head and then the doubt fingers struck. Doubting that I was good enough, doubting that it was worth it, doubting that the characters in my head were compelling enough to have their story told. And so, when I'd actually come to sit down and type, the doubt fingers would affect my words. I'd second guess scenes as I wrote them, I'd self-edit as I was writing. My first draft of Proclaimed Bk 1 was free writing, just telling the story, not thinking about motivation, plotting and background etc. It came out at 40k words and then I went back and fixed it and then fixed it again and still now, am fixing certain parts. I need to get back to the free flying 40k words storytelling and not worry about the fixing as I go. I want to get back there because it's fun and that's what writing should be, fun and enjoyable.
Anyway, that's just an update on the book as it stands. I'd promised to be honest and forthright and so here we are.
