Writer's Block

The last few months have been difficult.

Perhaps I could have said that at almost any point in my recent life... I don't know. Anyway, in this case, having been made redundant last March, and still being out of work now (with a family to support) is not conducive to getting a good night's sleep, and as the time ticks past, it's not getting any easier!

I mention this, not in the hope of garnering sympathy, but so that I can try to explain somthing of my writing habits. I'd thought (or at least hoped) that some of the last few months would have been spent writing my latest novel - I know I've also been working on the house (in case I have to sell it, but the work needs doing anyway), but that doesn't take up all of the day. And yet I have hardly been able to bring myself to write a word in four months. What a waste!

Looking back though, this was entirely predictable. I've been here before. I can write when I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm neither. But I don't seem able to write when I'm worried - preoccupied with something that seems bigger than me - when I feel that I've lost control of my life, and it's been taken over by some sort of malevolent force...

It's a shame - The Watchmaker's Chain was coming on well. I'd written eight chapters - my main character had taken shape, he'd introduced several other significant characters, been presented with some shocking news which had developed into a lot of questions that demanded answers, and... well, you get the idea. Anyway, at the end of last year I'd left things rather up in the air, and poised to explode in several interesting directions, and there they've stayed.

I've managed to read it through (in the hope that I would be inspired to write again), and I did expand the last chapter a little (to explain some things that needed explaining) but so far the whole writing thing just doesn't want to happen.

I'd love to think that my next post will start with 'I've written chapter nine...', and perhaps it will. I hope so. As I say, I've been here before, and I know that I sometimes have to have a break from writing, but always come back to it, refreshed and itching to be at it. Failing that, perhaps my next post will start with 'I've got a new job...'.