Friday 2 March 2018

Almost as Difficult as Football


I was checking my blog stats – AKA engaging in a most unbecoming form of Google Navel Gazing – and noticed that some kind soul had fallen upon a blog post from March 2015: Number One Career. I couldn’t remember anything about it so had a click myself. It's about being a writer and as I come across so many tweets and posts about competition wins, near misses and 'good' (loads of promise but I just don’t love it enough) and 'not so good' (please don't be disheartened, we receive three billion submissions a week and only take on two to three new writers a year) rejections, I thought I'd post this again here

It was written just before I announced my
two book deal
with Urbane Publications and hope it might serve as motivation to hang on in there if you're in that stage of high emotional swings, spending your days between clicking send/receive and trying not to. 

Or indeed, you're stuck in a gargantuan plot hole.

Keep going! If it was easy, they'd call it football 😉*


*This is my daughter's quote from when she was ten. It always amused me because having played hockey and netball for my whole childhood and beyond, I played football once at school when I inadvertently broke my friend, captain, and absolute star of our hockey team's leg and a second time in the Women's Puma Four, when our team of four were forced to add football to three other disciplines we knew better and let's just say, our friend's husband, dragged in to give us a crash course of training, found it rather amusing that after five minutes, I mean, really, five minutes, of sprinting after a ball and generally not connecting with our feet - side of our feet, I learnt that bit - we were exhausted, I was reminded that football is actually, really extremely hard. But I hope you know what I mean…

6 comments:

  1. I can never remember who said it, but one of my favourite (probably very mangled, by now) quotes about writing is "If you can do anything else, do that instead".

    It reminds me that writing isn't just a job you select from a list of possibilities, it's something that's deep inside you.

    If you're a writer, you'd dismiss that quote without a second thought.

    PS. My current glaring plot hole is that I don't actually have a plot. This is a failing indeed!

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  2. Oh well, on the bright side, no plot means nothing to fault!! But more seriously, I feel sure it’s all about to fall into place 😊 And how very depressing is that quote? If quite ridiculous, in my humble opinion... My favourite came from the crime writer, RJ Ellory: what’s the difference between a published and an unpublished writer? The unpublished writer gave up. Nice! Thanks for your great comment, Annalisa. Have a wonderful weekend!

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    1. Oh no, I don't think the quote is depressing - I find it reassuring that I'm on the right path because I can think of nothing I'd rather do. I love my job as a fitness instructor, but I'd happily give it up to write full time, not vice versa!

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    2. Oh how funny, I read it as, 'It's a godforsaken career, so if you have any other skill, then use that to do something else instead'! Anyway, I agree, it's anything but a godforsaken career but I do also think that being a fitness instructor alongside is a great combination - you get the people contact that you don't get from the pc. Teaching is the perfect anecdote for me.

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  3. I know time has moved on but just had to say that I have now read Deaf Sentence as recommended 2 blogs ago and it is absolutely brilliant. EVERYONE should read this book. It is indeed very funny at times and at others excrutiatingly sad and poignant, as you will gather I loved it. The characters are totally believable and engaging and above all totally human and I dare you not to be worried that one of them is going to do something stupid that you are willing him (or could be her!!) not to do. Go on, give it a go.

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    1. That is just the best review! Thanks Lyn, I know exactly who you're talking about... :) I'm so glad you enjoyed it, love it when somebody enjoys a recommendation. Thanks for popping over to my blog!

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