It’s a very strange feeling to know you’re on the final leg of a marathon.

This blog has been sorely neglected. It’s growing weeds and spawning spiders, it’s been so long since I brushed it off.

Mea culpa. I have been deep into writing The Next Book, which I have mentioned before. But this time, unlike the first book, someone is waiting for it. The beauty (and the pitfall) of writing the first book as an Unpublished Writer is that you have all the time in the world.
I find myself in the nice position of having to write The Next Book to a deadline. And I am finding that I might even prefer that. Okay, an extra couple of weeks would be nice, but I have this feeling that I would just slow down, take my foot off the gas.

The discipline of a regular writing schedule is really useful. Once I stop overthinking the thing, and glue my posterior onto the chair, I just get on with it.

So somehow, over the past weeks, I have grown this manuscript, little by little, with regular work. Now, this isn’t to say I haven’t questioned the quality of it, because I have. But what I have realised, by reading other writers’ blogs and tweets, is that everyone worries, at some point, that everything s/he has written so far is rubbish.

Here’s a nice blog piece by Keris Stainton that pretty much sums this feeling up. I was tweet-alerted to it by the lovely Stephanie Burgis, a fellow Templar author.

So is there any answer to this dilemma of reaching the middle, or even the end of a manuscript and wanting to deep-six it? Yeah, ignore the urge. See the thing through, get it done and put some clear blue water between you and It.

All this being said, I have a manuscript to get back to. You may not hear from me for a little while yet, but I shall return to jog my victory lap around the arena soon.