The Dread Blank

That dreadline feeling...  

The image above is a collage I did, to show the feeling of impotent dread that accompanies approaching deadlines and 'writers block' .
Self-motivation is all very well, but sometimes I feel as though I should post a sign - 'gone fishing ', or somesuch - ' watch this space '.
I'm doubly anxious, as I foolishly decided to be gung - ho and join the writing challenge,  NanoWriMo this month, to bolster my writing ability. Ha!
Big fail.
The first thing I noticed was how sickeningly youthful everyone seemed and keen as mustard with those ludicrous word counts.
The proactive devices included constant pep talks via e-mail, and invites to forums and feelgood badges to mark every virtual mountain climbed and word count analysis and sage advice from Those Who Had Gone Before - they all combined to fire up my inner cynic -
' Hey, when I've finished doing all this, am I also expected to write 2000 words a day?'
In fairness, when I started, I was determined to write sequentially and coherently ;
which meant dotting the i's and crossing the T's
Bigger Fail.
That soon fell by the wayside, as I realised that there would be a further couple of months to 'fine tune' the Magnum Opus.
Which struck me as defeating the object a little.
So , I become even more cynical.
Then I just had to work on a new electronic nonsense (did I tell you that I occasionally make weird sounds ?)
After all, the Xmas Cash-In won't write itself.
I'll post a link when it's ready.
Ahem...
And oh, Xmas and Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and
Did I tell you that I am a World Class Procrastinator ?
Still, I wrote a stream of consciousness piece which I could concievably shoehorn into my space opera.
If  I introduce quantum mechanics and the idea of a parallel universe.
Where everyone speaks like a Monty Python character.
So, probably not then.
I've downsized my dreams.

I'm still quietly optimistic, however.
Hovering at 24,000 words...
Hey, there's a market for novellas, right?
Short attention spans, fast reads on the daily commute?
Good, because I hate those unwieldy six - book chronicles.


I digress - the purpose of this rant is to apologise for the lack of this weekly blog.
I hit the buffers.
Oddly enough, my original intention was just to post a notice about writers block, by way of apology.
So even this much is a bonus, yay! (waves ridiculously small flag).
Little victories.


Normal service will be resumed...promise!