Hi everyone!

I hope you’re all having a splendid weekend.

Today, I thought I’d blog about the three writerly challenges I find myself grappling with most often, and how I try to deal with them.

Writing fiction has been my passion for as long as I can remember, but I only decided to focus seriously on it and make it a priority a few years ago, after completing my PhD. My vision of writerly life was far too idealistic back then: I thought I would spend hours every evening and weekend typing away at my desk, surrounded by plot outlines and character charts, sipping a cup of Earl Grey and chuckling at the witty scenes pouring from my fingertips (à la Jessica Fletcher), while having plenty of time left to do my day job, spend time out and about with my boyfriend (now husband), socialise, and generally live my life.

Whoops! Turns out it’s not that simple. There are many challenges to completing works of fiction, and most of these (for me) tend to relate to mindset and motivation. In particular, there are three “problems” that I find recur when I try to sit down and write …

Challenge no.1: “I’m tired / I have a million other things to do / *other forms of procrastination*!”

This is my commonest obstacle. Most days (when we’re not in a lockdown period), I get home from work around 6 p.m., feeling exhausted (I’m on medication that makes me drowsy, which doesn’t help!). I exercise three evenings a week, which can take up to an hour, and then either me or my husband (or both of us) needs to make dinner and we need to eat it … after this, I try to write for an hour or so, but often I give in to tiredness / wanting to spend time with my husband, and we end up watching TV instead. I get up at 6.30 a.m. for work, so there’s no time to write in the mornings. I almost always get some writing done at the weekends, but am nevertheless dogged by the feeling that I should be doing housework / gardening / going for a run / reading and giving feedback on my friends’ writing / doing some of my TEFL course / etc.

However, I have come to realise that the problem isn’t so much lack of time / energy, but more the fear of sitting down and not being able to write. Deep down, I’m scared that what I write won’t be any good, or that it will be really really difficult and draining, or that I’ll just start getting into it when it will be time to stop ... so I tell myself “There’s no point writing now. I’ll wait until I have enough time to do it well.”

My solution has really been to acknowledge that I do this, and to rationalise with myself. Yes, I only have a few hours and I’m tired, but I’ve never sat down to a Word document and not been able to write anything. In fact, once I start writing, I always really enjoy it; it is sometimes difficult, but in a rewarding sort of way, not a depressing one. Yes, there are other things to be done, but once I’ve done a bit of writing I always feel better, which makes it somehow easier to then do those other tasks. Writing should be my priority.

I also try not to beat myself up if I go a day or two without writing. There’s no point in this: it’s stressful and turns writing into a chore. Since I’ve started being kinder to myself, life has become easier, and writing has become more enjoyable.

Belonging to a writing group has also really helped. I meet with two other writers (via Zoom) every month, and we read and critique one another’s work. It’s a great source of motivation to know that someone is waiting to read my material, and I always leave our chats feeling inspired to go and write something immediately.
 
Challenge no.2: “What should I be working on?!”

This has only recently become an issue. Last year, when I was doing the Faber Academy WIP course, I knew exactly what to work on: my novel, The Witch Hunt. However, since finishing The Witch Hunt, I’ve been consumed by an anxiety of wasting writing time. Should I write another draft of the completed novel? Or, should I focus on writing some short stories, with the aim of getting more publications to add to my cover letter when I submit my novel to agents? Or, should I work on the new novel that I’ve only recently started writing, which will surely be stronger than the last and have a better chance of being published?

Very often, this has a rabbit-in-the-headlights effect, and I end up writing nothing.

I’ve found it helpful to remind myself that no writing time is “wasted”. Doing something you love isn’t wasting time. When I was 16, I spent a summer writing my first “novel”. I think it ended up being only around 35,000 words long, but it was the first lengthy story that I’d written (I can’t really remember the plot, other than it was about three sisters who had gone missing, and the vicar turned out to be the villain (and the sisters turned up safe at the end)). I never even considered getting it published, but I wrote it because I wanted to. It felt good to create something, to express ideas I’d had for characters and events. This, I now remind myself, is evidence that the dream of publication isn’t the only reason I write. Yes, my goal in life is to have a novel published, but even if I somehow knew there was no hope of this ever happening, I’d still write.

This helps invalidate the idea that I’m investing time on the “wrong” project. I work on a bit of this, and a bit of that, and I enjoy it and have faith that hard work will ultimately be rewarded.
 
Challenge no.3: “I’m getting old and I’m still not a pulished novelist!! Time is running out!”

I think this is also at the core of challenge no.2. I grew up as the youngest in my family, and my late-August birthday meant I was always the youngest in my school year and in my group of friends. It was drummed into me that I was young, that there was plenty of time to do everything I wanted to in life.

Now, suddenly, I find that I’m thirty! Blimey! How did that happen?! I’ve read so many interviews in which published authors explain how they knew they had to get their debut novel out before they hit thirty, and an increasing number of novelists nowadays seem to be in their twenties. It’s easy to be discouraged by this – to feel like it’s time to put the dream aside and just focus on career and family.

Obviously, this is a load of utter rubbish. Rationally, I know it’s rubbish. Many, many writers don’t get published until later in life. Muriel Spark, Annie Proulx, Toni Morrison, Frank McCourt, J.R.R Tolkien … all of these could be said to have been past their youth when they embarked on their literary careers. There should be no age-limit when it comes to writing, and I hate the idea of prescribed “stages” in life, the idea that people have a “prime”. Women in particular seem to face a lot of social pressure to achieve everything while they’re still young.  

So, when I start to get down or anxious about this, I tell myself to stop being stupid. Who cares if I have a few wrinkles by the time I need to pose for an author photo? I love that the stress of my teenage years and my twenties is behind me, that I’m a more experienced writer now, and that I potentially have the excitement of getting my first novel published to look forward to. Why rush to get all the fun stuff over with? If I have to wait until I’ve eighty, so be it – it’s always nice to have something good ahead of you!

How about you? What are the biggest mental challenges you face when it comes to writing, and how do you tackle them? 

2.    And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
​A classic. This is my favourite Agatha Christie novel – the first time I read it, I stayed up until 3 a.m. to finish it, and then was too scared to sleep. It’s the claustrophobic atmosphere that makes it so gripping: ten strangers stranded on a tiny island start getting killed off one by one, each desperately trying to work out who the killer is before their turn comes. If you need a distraction from everyday life, this is one to go for – but, perhaps don’t read it alone at night.

3.    My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante (translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein)
​This novel has some of the most remarkable prose I’ve ever read – I’m in awe of both Ferrante’s beautiful writing and Goldstein’s brilliant translating. Set in Naples in the 1950s, My Brilliant Friend is the first of the ‘Neapolitan Novels’ series, and its portrayal of the complexities of female friendship – the insecurities, the jealousies, the love and ugliness and loyalty – is subtle and astonishing. It’s not a book you’ll zip through in a day, but it’s certainly one to get lost in. 

4.    Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
​‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again’ – surely one of the most iconic opening lines to a novel. Rebecca was the first ‘grown-up’ book I read, aged 11, and I devoured it – I remember lying reading in bed (hours after I should have been asleep) and being shocked by the many revelations that come towards the end. That first time, I was wholly on the side of the narrator, and took things at face value. Re-reading it as an adult, in a post-#MeToo world, I realised how problematic the narrative is, which I think was intentional on du Maurier’s part: we only get one side of the story, the eponymous character having been silenced before the novel begins. The night before my wedding, unable to sleep, I picked up Rebecca; I finished it                                                           on my honeymoon. It’s a book I associate with extraordinary times.

5.    The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
​I’ve always been mad about historical ghost stories set in big Gothic houses, and The Little Stranger is probably my favourite of these. I read it over Christmas 2017, curled up in the little guest bedroom of my parents’ house, late into the nights. Who or what is haunting Hundreds Hall? I didn’t figure it out until near the end of the novel (the book’s final sentence is a key clue, if you haven’t got it by then), but when I did it made me view everything that had happened so far in a completely different light. I kept thinking about it obsessively for months afterwards. It might be one to avoid if you’re easily upset by sad things happening to animals, however (I cried for at least half an hour). 

6.    Diving Belles by Lucy Wood
Another debut, but this time a volume of magic-realist short stories set in Cornwall. I love Lucy Wood’s writing, the way she blends Cornish myths and the supernatural (think pixies, witches, people turning to stone) with the mundanities of everyday modern life (arguments with exes, visits to nursing homes), and, as I went to school in Cornwall and spent much of my childhood exploring its coast, these stories have a special resonance for me. I can’t recommend this book enough – you should read it!

7.    The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
​I have three friends who adore Georgette Heyer, and they’ve lent/given me a lot of her Regency romance novels over the years. I completely get the appeal: her stories are frothy, fun, and offer total escape from the real world (which is what we all need at the moment). The Grand Sophy is one of my favourite Heyer novels – the protagonist is a confident woman who upturns social norms and has a pet monkey. What more could you want?

8.    The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
​In my late teens and early twenties, I was obsessed with Neil Gaiman’s writing. His imagination seems to know no bounds: his stories are fantastical and weird and intricate and full of vivid characters, and can leave your heart racing. I think The Ocean at the End of the Lane is probably the darkest of his novels – there are scenes in it that are really frightening – so don’t read it if you’re not a fan of horror. If that sounds like your thing, however, you should definitely get hold of a copy: it’s a book that will suck you in and keep you up at night.

9.    The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows
I’ve only recently read this novel, after a colleague lent it to me, but I really enjoyed it and it definitely made me feel better about the current lockdown situation. An epistolary novel set in 1946, it follows writer Juliet Ashton as she befriends the members of a Guernsey book group and learns of their experiences during World War Two. I can see how some readers might deem it a bit twee or predictable, but at the novel’s heart is a story about community and friendship, and I found that a real tonic.

10.    Loitering With Intent by Muriel Spark
​Muriel Spark is one of my heroes (did you know she only ever wrote one draft of anything? Amazing!), and this is possibly my favourite of her works. It’s a short novel, narrated by writer and secretary Fleur Talbot as she sets about exposing the nefarious dealings of her employer, and, as well as having Spark’s usual touches of metafiction and autobiography, is extremely funny. It’s one of the few novels that I’ve read multiple times, and I may well return to it yet again during the lockdown period, when I need a laugh.