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I’d love my novel to become an immediate bestseller, but for now, simply being able to point to my creation out there in the ether will be far by enough.
If you really want to write, save up and take a sabbatical. Go somewhere peaceful for a few weeks, away from distractions, turn off the phone and TV, flip open your laptop, open a blank page and write whatever comes into your head. Allow yourself to be surprised and delighted by what comes out of you onto the page.
One of the questions I get asked now that my novel is finished is: “who are you getting to edit it for you?”
As a former journo, I’m quite used to word length restrictions. I started my career on a typewriter and we’d often have to hack out 250 words in 15 minutes…
I could have done what I’m doing now at any point but life got in the way. Earning a living, the distractions of the big city, my own personal struggles, all contributed to stop me, or at least that’s what I told myself.
But at the heart of all that was fear, plain and simple. Fear of being penniless, fear of rejection, fear – and this is the biggest one – of not being good enough.
‘On Writing’ by legendary horror author Stephen King is one of the best books on writing I have ever read. I have the audiobook too, read by the author, which is spinetingling.