Delays – The Climb #570 - Adrian Faulkner

Monday 14^th September 2020

The best laid plans.

Today was going to be the day I started on the redraft but I’m ill. I’m so unbelievably unfocused, and even ended up going to bed late afternoon.

I don’t trust myself when I’m ill. I’m not sure if there’s some chemical change in the brain when you have a cold, but I always find my imagination is a bit different. It’s like Tim Burton got hold of my ideas and interpreted them. Everything is a bit more distorted or twisted.

And whilst that’s an interesting space to be when it comes to construction of new ideas (particularly short stories due to the length of colds precluding anything longer) I really don’t want to be diving into a redraft with my brain slightly tilted.

You might think this a form of procrastination, but the truth is that even if I felt ready I’d still delay. I’m not under any deadline and just trying to get ahead of myself a little. Were I, then I’d battle through…but I’d really like to be in a position that, throughout my career, I’m ahead of myself.

Publishing is always going to have their own timescales and I don’t want to be the one throwing that into disarray by either delivering early or late. What I would like is to be done well ahead of deadlines so that if something does come along (like a cold) that sidelines me for a few days, I’m not then scrabbling to catch up.

Instead, I’d rather have things done early, either allowing me more time to go back and focus on something that’s niggling me, or working on other side projects.

It’s a pipe dream, and real life is never that simple, but I feel I have a lot of stories in me still unwritten. I know how long drafts used to take me. I know how long redrafts used to. Over the years I’ve worked to be more efficient with that process and whilst my redrafting could use some practise to ensure that wasn’t a one off, all this work on productivity and efficiency over the years has been so that at some point I can get these stories written, even if I don’t have a home for them at the time.

A lot of writers say they get to a stage when they fear that there are not enough years left in their lives to write all the stories they want. That’s been me this year, and whereas I was previously more content to focus on the quality of my craft, now there’s a little more focus on getting the story machine churning.