Back To Work October – The Climb #586

Wednesday 30^th September 2020

With the end of the month here and my frustration at having a month off (although it was prompted by illness and was perfect time to do so) I’m starting to look at October and mentally prepare to get back into the thick of it.

Of course, there’s quite a bit of work to do to prepare. Whilst I’ve been writing them, I’ve not posted The Climb for a week (in part due to the fact that I need more thumbnail images). There are also a number of real world admin tasks I’ve not done over the last month that I need to go over and do or schedule.

Rather than see this as procrastination, what I try to do is use this prep time to get my head back into a project. Key to this for me, is this perpetual thought that I need to make the story lighter. Given the world around me that’s going to be quite hard. I wrote this first draft when a family member was diagnosed with a terminal illness and I can see how my anger and upset about this found its way onto the page.

I hope I’m a better writer now than when I wrote this but it was a lesson to me on how my subconscious is always on the page.

There’s also the fun and love of the project. I love this character and the world they are in. Heck, I’ve fought too hard for them in the past for anyone to doubt that. But I need to reconnect to that love and fun. It’s akin to going back to your favourite TV or film property and watching a scene that you enjoy to remind you of just how much you love it.

I see this reconnection as being really important. I have trained myself to write when uninspired but I need that emotional link to a project.

When I was younger, I used to love doing impressions. They were mostly pretty terrible but I can do a wicked Zippy and George from the kid’s TV show, Rainbow. Even to this day, to get those voices back I have set phrases I need to do to start with. Those touchstones not only help establish the voice but also the character.

So it is with writing. I need those touchstones to find the love of projects. It can be a cool scene that I’m looking forward to writing or one I’ve written that I’m quite proud of. It can be visual or even a piece of music that forms part of my playlist for writing. They all help ensure I’m in the right headspace.

And I can do a lot of these things whilst clearing the admin tasks. So I suspect I’ll be listening to Spotify whilst thinking about specific scenes as I sort out my ToDo list tomorrow.

If I’ve learnt anything about my process in the last few years, it’s that the prep work is so important, either planning the project and what needs to be done, or getting my head into a place where I’m engulfed in the world I want to write and am excited to do so.