Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Doesn’t time fly when one is procrastinating?  I should know. I have been doing so for over a year.

With two novels down,  the time to start writing the third has never been quite right, what with ironing to do and cupboards to tidy and other important things like that.  Then when on occasion I run out of tasks and have to turn my minds to things literary there are so many things to consider.  Thinking about plot involves  wasting water as I turn over possibilities in the shower, then many fruitless hours can be spent on the internet in the name of research and updating Facebook. Then I have to decide where in the story I am going to start. Try the beginning I hear you say, but it is not always that obvious. Perhaps starting in the middle could be better, or perhaps the end and have it all in flashback.

The problem is that this novel does not yet have a publisher so there is no deadline. Disaster for a procrastinator because anything but writing will always take priority over the three chapters and a synopsis which are needed by my agent in order to create a bidding war for this literary masterpiece. 

However, I have been given a kick start. I had to write a short story for Write Stuff in the Scotsman. I had a deadline. I had to sit down and create something in under three weeks and I managed it. It appears in print on Saturday, It has shown me that I can do it if I have to.

So I am now four chapters into Novel 3, a family mystery set in New Zealand and UK. I’ll write a few more chapters, then edit the first three and invent a synopsis. I intend to finish the whole thing  before Easter……… or perhaps we should make that June……