Writing

I’m writing a kids book at the moment, although I only manage to do about a page a day, I’ve been doing that consistently for about 3 weeks now, having started it very energetically months ago, and then let it lapse. The Argentinian once told me that the rule is that if you can do something daily for 3 weeks, then it becomes a habit and is easy to keep up.

This is true. I write it in bed before I go to sleep, and I find now that the moment I get into bed at the end of the day, it is automatic to power on the laptop and just get on with it. The secret is not to be bothered if it seems like crap or you have no idea what to write. I have a broad general plan and then I just write something. After all, I can always edit it afterwards. It is a lot easier to edit than it is to write from scratch. I reckon I’m about a third of the way through the first draft now (35000 words).

It’s not a lot, but it makes me feel like Tim Robbins in the Shawshank Redemption, scraping away the wall behind his gigantic Farrah Fawcett poster, until the day he can crawl out into the sewer and escape.

The book is fun too! Well, I think so anyway. And there are a great many attractive people in it. As Diana Wynne Jones says, Books without attractive people are boring. Very true, and something that a lot of proper writers could do with remembering.