Saturday 9th May 2021

I have done something to my back.

This is super frustrating but not totally unexpected.  I spent much of the day hunched over a computer, and then when I’m not, I’m either looking down at a phone or slouched on a sofa.  As a result I’ll often feel like the back of my neck has been stretched or knotted between my shoulder blades.

Because of C having major issues with his cat and a neighbour, I went to the support sofa early today.  And because it’s lockdown and there’s nothing to do, I ended up falling sleep on the sofa for an afternoon nap, and now my back  feels knotted and twisted.

This is easy enough to resolve but it does require me sitting up at my desk and keeping my back straight for a few days.  Except I have Pokemon Go Community Day tomorrow which will have me bent over my phone and a raid tomorrow night which will have me hunched over the laptop.

It’s little things like this that remind me how my health can put a spanner in the works.  I’ve been thinking that I really want to squirrel myself away for a couple of weeks and write The Accursed.  I’ve spent much of this year thinking about markets, and trying to balance my creative needs with market conditions.  And there’s a huge part of me that thinks I just need to forget that and start having fun with writing again.

I’m finding this with this detailed outline I’m doing.  I’m having fun with it and whilst it’s taking time (probably because it’s overly ambitious) I’m liking that I’m trying to create something that pushes me and the market.

It’s a difficult time to be a writer.  Markets are tight which means that the big publishers are not going to take a punt on anything that’s radically different.  You have to find what their tickboxes of success are, be very conformist on those and then try and push everything inbetween to differentiate yourself.  Plus, we live in a very polarised world.  I’d like to consider myself pretty open and considerate, but I know I have gaps.  I work to address those gaps once identified but even for me it creates an air of not pushing myself in case I’m blind to how I’m inadvertently discriminating against some group or other.  I’m all for holding people accountable, but I also think people can be well-meaning, make mistakes, and learn from them.  I don’t believe cancel culture is wrong, but I do believe it can be a little too binary at times and not allow for growth and improvement.  As a result, I find myself second guessing myself a lot of the time (which is both good and bad).

Part of me still wants to do the serial, but The Accursed was originally going to be that, and it’s now a novel.

So the plan is that once this detailed outline is done, I’m going to throw myself at The Accursed and get the draft done, but in doing so really find the fun of the project.  My best writing is when the characters are fun and engaging, and I can sometimes lose that when I’m worrying about the market.

But, there’s still part of me that thinks I need a new chair that supports my back better.  I can’t concentrate when my back is killing me.

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