Day the Third, and the pressure begins!

I  always knew this day was coming - the day when NaNo starts to conflict with work. Now, before you get too excited, nothing dramatic happened; it wasn't a Sophie's Choice moment, and I didn't get fired or anything. Just a little note in my inbox from one of my lovelier clients asking how I was getting on.

To problem is, I haven't been getting on. Not even a bit. 

The problem with falling absolutely in love with a project - as I have with 'The Moon Path' - is that that becomes all you want to do with your time. An hour in the evening isn't enough, five hours in a coffee shop isn't enough. A whole day isn't enough! I want to be writing it twenty-four hours a day, three-hundred and sixty-five days a year for the rest of my life! Of course, I cannot wait until it's the finished polished piece in my hands, but, equally, I'm dreading the day when it's over. What will I do then? 

This is exactly the reason why I am loathe to finish anything. It isn't laziness (well, maybe a bit!) it's the very real phobia of leaving something behind. Every time I finish a piece - my diss, my november NaNo, a ghostwriting project - my body goes into shock. It's quite terrifying. I've spent so long with that piece, and wrapped myself so completely up in it that it has become my entire world that, for an hour or a day, I struggle to function in a world without it. 

I'm the kind of person that likes having several projects on the go, doing a bit here and bit there, and never committing to finishing anything (my fanfiction.net profile is a key example of this). I struggle with endings, writing them and dealing with them. I am never satisfied. That's why fanfiction has been so liberating - it means nothing is ever finished; there's always prequals and sequals and What If oneshots. 

But real life, and real writing, doesn't allow for that - the purpose is to finish and move on. Let it go.

I don't think I'll ever learn how to do that without my body going into shock.

In other news, this is what I'm listening to today - Christina Perri's Human

  It feels pretty appropriate for my main character. I really like coming across songs randomly that just seem to fit. 

Like Buses

It's amazing how things turn around, and it certainly makes me think that karma definitely exists. Or something of the sort. It seems that my life is constantly trying to find balance; if things get too good, then it has to balanced with bad things, but oh no! Now it's too bad! So send lots of good things!

At the moment I'm on a high. From being turned down for a job I really wanted and I really thought was mine, I now have a new job which is paying me two cents a word (!!!!), I am being considered for writing for a comic book company, and yesterday I was offered a high-paying ghost-writing job which, unfortunately, I don't have the time for at the moment, but they said they'd definitely contact me in the future.

I'm sure all this means something terrible is just around the corner, but right now I'm reveling in my good fortune and making the most of all the opportunities I have been given.

Thank you universe.

Living the Dream

I graduated nine months ago with a degree in English and Creative Writing, and in the time that's past it's been fascinating to see what my course-mates have been up to. That's the beauty of Facebook, right? I now have a friend that's working for the BBC, another that's a full-time carer, one who's living the high-life up in London, and more than I can count who are looking for something - anything - to fill the gap between graduation and The Career. 

And you know what every single one of these people have in common? They are writers and all they want to do is write, but there is no time and they can't afford it and they're too tired in the evenings. We've all been there, and we know how that goes. 

And then there's me. 

For my whole life, I have known that I am a writer; it is literally the only thing that I have ever been brilliant at. If I don't write, then what the hell am I going to do? 

Throughout my degree, people told me more times than I can count that the only thing I would be able to use it for would be teaching. Maybe academia if I sold my soul to Student Finance, but what it boiled down to was I would never be able to make my living doing what I love, because that's just not how life goes. 

I was lucky enough to spend six months in Austin, Texas after I graduated, nannying for my brother-in-law, and this provided me with the time I needed to Look at my Life and Look at my Choices. Because, obviously, I couldn't Get A Real Job in America, I applied to several work-from-home jobs. I wrote for a movie reviews website, I dabbled in writing for a removals company, and I discovered - much to my distress - that I was utterly useless when it came to non-fiction. 

Ugh. What kind of chance did I have in the world of professional writing, if I couldn't do non-fiction? None.

So I took a break, and I played a lot of Harvest Moon.

Then November brought me the blessed gift of NaNoWriMo. I won't go into detail right now - let's save something for later - but during that month I learnt more about myself as a writer than I ever had at university. I learnt self-discipline; I learnt that all you have to do to write is to sit down and bloody well write! No Excuses! And, above all, I learnt to have faith in my own ability.

After all, if I can write a novel in a month, I can do anything. 

Since then, I have not been afraid of different genres or huge word counts. 20,000 in three weeks? Pfft! Bring it on! All sorts of crazy job specifications have been thrown at me, and sure - sometimes I have to sit back and take a moment, but it's all a challenge and it's all experience and, you know what? I am using my degree to what I love.

I am a writer. 

There's no trick; I didn't get an easy break. My course-mates stare at me in disbelief and ask how I do it. I send them the links to oDesk and NaNo, and say there you go. Because, really, that's all there is.

The problem is, we were conditioned to believe that there was no hope and no chance for us, and when you can't believe, you don't try. 

NaNoWriMo was a test for myself - if I failed that, then I had forfeited my dream. If I couldn't be a writer, I wouldn't be anything. But I succeeded because I had faith in my own ability, and now nothing feels impossible. Sure, every step is hard work - there is no laid out path, but isn't that the fun of it? - But I am Living the Dream.

All it takes - literally - is a little bit of faith. 

The 'I Don't Want To' Problem.

I don't want to, and you can't make me! 

For as long as I can remember - longer, probably - I have wanted to be a professional writer; doing what I love and making money out of it. Everyone told me it was impossible. Everyone told me that the only thing I'd be using my degree for would be spell-checking orders in a restaurant. 

And now, here I am, a professional writer with an encroaching deadline. It's a fairly simple project - a YA High-School Zombie story of 8-10,000 words - a doddle after NaNoWriMo's daunting task of 50,000 words in a month. But, for some reason, I just can't quite bring myself to do it. 

I don't know why; I have it all planned out, I could do it in a couple of days if I really wanted to... But I don't. I don't want to, and you can't make me! 

I have discovered that I am like this with everything, though. It was a constant issue during my degree, it's the reason why 90% of my (reasonably successful) fanfictions are unfinished, and will probably forever remain so. It is the reason I keep myself up at night with anxiety. 

No matter how much I love what I'm working on, I will fight against doing it until the cows come home, I will give myself every excuse not to sit down at my work-space (today's excuse is that I absolutely must teach myself 'A Song for Sienna' on the piano), and I will whine about it until all my facebook friends have blocked me and my wife bans me from the kettle. 

The thing is, I know with complete 100% certainty that, by the time the 3rd of March comes along, the project will be complete. I know this. 

 It's just the getting there that's the problem.