The Olympic Games has just finished in Paris. The swimming pool was a big draw for many, with lots of magical moments set in the various competitions, events, and races taking place there.
Last summer, I jumped in at the deep end (metaphorically speaking) when I laid down my full-time writing time to become a teaching assistant in school with a group of 5-6 year olds.
Talk about hitting the water hard!
A year on, and two days away from starting back at school for the upcoming year, I’m taking time to come here, to reflect, and more importantly, to talk about what my writing life looks like from here on (at least in the immediate future, anyway).
Because, and keeping the metaphor going just a little longer, while I’m very much still in the pool, that initial plunge of 12 months ago, head under, trying to keep afloat, is very much passed now. I go back stronger, wiser, more experienced. I know what to expect, know it’ll be full-on (working many hours a day with children can never be anything but!), yet I also know I can do it. I can do this job!
What about writing? Last summer, I knew writing would take a distant back shelf. It’s not that I stopped being creative, but that I just didn’t have the head space, the physical capacity to do anything other than the job at school.
Now, I wonder if even this changes.
Let’s see. Let’s hope.
There are plenty of ideas circling my creative zone in my writing brain space, ideas that I’ve had for a while, ideas pressing further for proper exploration. Thrillers, dystopian, perhaps even more edgy than anything I’ve written before.
And I aim to explore what writing while working full-time looks like for me this coming year. Not right away (the opening month or two is always intense) but soon. And if I can see a new way working, a hybrid process where I see book-writing progression happen in and around the natural gaps I have in my timetable, then it is certainly something I will look to develop.
Perhaps, just maybe, this time next summer I’ll be sitting here with a title(s) that are in the process of being published. And if that happens, I know I will have truly survived the deep-end, and not even just survived, but beginning to thrive.
I think I’ll aim to work on something new first, in my thriller/dystopian style, looking to get back to basics and back to my best. If I see this working, then I might use the space to continue the one series that I do get asked about ALL the time, especially at school (and not just from the children!). The next Twiggy Rattlesnake book (which is book three)…
A year ago, as I took the leap, I had wondered if that was it for me. It certainly looked it. But now I wonder afresh… could there be yet more to come, and if so, how good can I make these next books? Because I never stop thinking creatively. It’s always there. It never switches off.
I just need to find the space to write. And perhaps, in these next months, I will…