So, here I am, sitting at my desk surrounded by notes, plans, pens, scraps of paper, ideas and a keyboard. 100,000 words to go…
Yes, I’m starting book 3 of my memoirs about teaching in the Dales in the Eighties. It’ll be published in July 2013 which seems a long way away but the publishing world moves unquickly. I’m quite excited but also tentative: starting something new takes time and the right frame of mind. A blank sheet of paper is quite a scary thing.
So I’m reading my first two books again to refamiliarise myself with the characters, the setting, the language, the details of the world which is there in my head but swirling around loosely at the moment: it needs shifting firmly to the front of the mind and fixing there for immediate access. Of course I shall be out in the car and visiting the locations too: the village where we lived, the school where I worked, the towns and roads and hills and farms and more. I shall stand in front of the beautiful waterfall where I played with my children 25 years ago and I shall sigh. What a wondrous, magical place.
But, hang on, what am I doing? Writing a blog? That’s procrastination – I should be writing a book, getting on with it, typing furiously. Come on!
Actually, I need a cup of tea first.
