Best Laid Plans

First of all, a very warm welcome to all new subscribers. It's great to have you here and I look forward to sharing the many facets of my #indie journey with you.

Now, this may come as a surprise to some but just because I’m self-published doesn’t mean I’m not working to a publishing programme, self-imposed though it is. Long before I went on a course which encourages creative types to develop a business plan I always had a publishing schedule. I love colourful charts so it was inevitable. My guilty secret is out. I have always completed an annual chart, marking out Work In Progress, Future Projects and prospective blog posts for up to 4 months into the future.

Giving myself deadlines helps me achieve goals and I rarely shift the timelines unless something unforeseen happens. Just last year I rearranged my teaching timetable so that I have two full writing days a week and on those days I write from 7am to 5pm, only breaking for meals. I treat my writing as a job as I’m hoping that it will eventually support me financially. At the start of 2019 I was working on 4 projects simultaneously: The Robert Deed Collection, a sequel to The Lonely Dragon (The Witch Adoption Project), a related project about Kastaspella’s cat (Memoirsof a Feline Familiar) and a collaborative collection of poetry. After the publication of the Deed Collection at the beginning of the year, my publishing calendar called for Memoirs of a Feline Familiar to be published at Easter. Well, Easter has come and gone and the manuscript remains unfinished as does that of The Witch Adoption Project. And it seems highly unlikely they’ll be published before August. The poetry will have to wait till next year at this rate. So, what went wrong?

Quite simply, my health let me down. I’ve always suffered from migraines but have successfully managed them with the help of homeopathy. Then suddenly in April I was bombarded by several all at once. For one particular period in May I had one every day for a fortnight. I can barely function when I have a migraine. Apart from the debilitating pain, I find them disorienting and frustrating as they stop me doing the one thing I love doing the most.

But the migraines do serve as a warning that my creative well is getting tapped out. Writing is a lonely business and it can make one insular, too much so if you’re not careful. My migraines force me to call on friends and family for support and start the recharge process. They demand I re-establish a healthy work – life balance. 

As yet the migraines are not completely gone. Every once in a while I’ll get sparkly flashes at the periphery of my vision. Then I take a break from the laptop and have a long draft of water or go for a walk in the fresh air. Currently the weather in the UK means it’s often a rather wet walk but that doesn’t matter too much. You’ll be glad to know that while things are not quite fully on track as yet, there’s a stirring of new project ideas in the old noggin and the well is filling up nicely. So please bear with me while I heal. I promise the projects will turn into published books for you to read and review.

If you live in South London then here's an opportunity to participate in one of my courses later this month. Please email to register as spaces are limited.

24 June - 29 July