I have been motivated to written another blog today as I subscribe to one and I felt guilty when it dropped into my in-box right on time. May I mention here that if you want to get my blog directly, then send me your email address and I will make sure you get it. Yes, I know they’re not very exciting right now, but as time goes on, I will learn how to post pics and make sure this links to my Facebook page etc.
Well I was so reassured by this other blog that I wanted to add to it. Often I don’t agree with what she says, but today she was spot on. Her argument is that if you have to write then you just do, and journalists are the perfect example of this. I’ve often written that myself, you just ‘can’t’ get ‘Writer’s Block,’ if you work in the media.
I’d felt as if I was swimming through treacle with Book 3 and last week, in a fit of madness, I decided that I would get it out by Christmas, that seems a good time to launch a book, with lots of people buying. But I was such a long way off. So I worked out roughly how many words I thought I would need to write, [doing Maths was never my strong point], and leaving November for fiddling around with CreateSpace, it came to just over a thousand a day.
On Tuesday 19th I had completed 44,000 words, so I reckoned that I could get to 50,000 before we went on holiday at the end of the month. Luckily it is a quiet time of year in a hot country, most people are just lazing around, so I got up early on Wednesday and was up to 51,000 by the end of the day. People reading my FB posts were incredulous and I began to worry about the quality of the writing. None the less I ploughed on and scribbled another five thousand on the Thursday.
You may have noticed that I had passed my goal? Yes! So I moved the goal posts to 60,000. Friday I was up to 58,000 and I thought, why not, 70,000 is possible, although a few every day living stuff was getting in the way, boring rubbish like washing, ironing and house cleaning.
Today is Wednesday and I’m over the 70,000 and I feel a great sense of achievement. Lots of editing to do of course, but I cracked the very first Writer’s block I have ever suffered from. I simply put myself mentally back into the workplace and instead of feeling like a retiree, playing for fun, I was writing seriously again.
It might work for you!
I plan to hold a competition to choose the title of Book 3. It’s about my media work in South Africa and the tag words I have in mind are – television, video, shoot, edit, Africa, radio. My problem is: the words – shoot – and – Africa – conjures up the mental picture of killing animals, but for television and video you shoot you do not film, they use that in Hollywood. Can you solve it? The prize? A paperback copy of the book you named!
Will be off air for a couple of weeks, but at least my conscience is clear for the moment! 🙂
lucinda E Clarke 