JoZebwrites

As ever, these things dovetail and I've had a couple of online interactions with writers talking about how self belief can be a barrier. This can take a number of sideroads in terms of impact: 1. I don't believe in what I'm writing, and therefore don't have the confidence to keep going. I think this is incredibly common. Few writers I know don't get to some part in the process without deciding what they're writing is the worst kind of drivel. Some jack it in at that point, becoming the perpetual never-completers, some keep going and hope to write through it, some take a bit of a break and then come back to that idea. For me, each works at different points in the process. Sometimes, too, that project isn't actually going to be a goer. The idea may not work in the form you're trying to work in. The idea might be weaker than it first seemed. None of this means the writer isn't a good writer, or that they should give up. It just means the project is...

I've been quiet for a couple of weeks. During that time, I've been struggling with my writing - and it's difficult to sustain a writing blog when you aren't actually writing. I've had a short story to do for an anthology that refused to come. I finished the novel I started last year and suspect it needs some space and then more work (the main character's voice doesn't feel strong enough yet). I started and didn't continue with some stuff. And I mused. Now I am an over-thinker and, when I turn my attention to musing, it can take some time. Thoughts that occurred to me included I might not have another book on me - and, strangely, I wasn't too concerned at that one. I came to writing to write Abendau and have the bonus of Inish Carraig and Waters and the Wild. If I have no more books out I still succeeded and I'd have no regrets. I'd take things back to being a hobby - and that has masses of appeal. Fewer hours spent promoting, only tak...

A few weeks ago, I did an apologetic Steve Redgrave Never-let-me-into-another-boat style blog. There would be no Inish Carraig 2. It wasn't working. It would never work. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons - to please others, not because I had a story in me - etc etc. Sorry, John and Henry. So long for thanks for all the fish. Most people were very good about it. And then IC's editor, Jeff, put in a comment that maybe I should write the story after the gang had returned to Earth, and a small little lightbulb sounded. Maybe John and Henry had never left Earth.... And then, long suffering Chris, my husband, made a comment that maybe, just maybe, there was a story around the intergalactic trial but that it didn't need to happen on the Zelo planet. And then I started to think about how things must be after the war, and what might be happen, and lo and behold I'm a chapter in with a three-stranded storyline (anyone who has read all my stuff might notice I tend to ...