Five months on from ‘Now’ vs ‘Next’ and the plan of little goals in pursuit of a big goal has been going relatively well. This blog reflects on the writing component.

Writing fiction is something I really enjoy. I’ve been doing it since I was in primary school and I’ve had decent feedback on it. I love to create a narrative where I can stand back at the end and be proud of how it achieves whatever goal I set for the piece. Usually I leap around genres because I like to try new things – suspense thriller here, rom-com there, historical fiction in another – each time a challenge to try something very different.

What I haven’t done is committed to writing a complete novel. I usually cap out at around the 50k mark for completed works. The longer things get shelved as I allow myself to become distracted and try something new. The list of excuses for never quite finishing The Novel is endless. But no more!

Back when I wrote ‘Now’ vs ‘Next’, ‘becoming a published author’ was one of the many goals I listed and I’d already taken a first step on that path – I spent a week in November going back over The Novel (an over 80k manuscript) and identifying what I needed to fix (as well as doing some fixing). The experience made it clear that carving out time to just focus on writing the book, preferably in a dedicated space, was something I really enjoyed and at which I could make real progress. The trade-off was that I needed to keep it separate from work, because spending my life on a laptop was not appealing.

Several months on, I booked myself onto a week at Arvon’s dedicated writing retreat. I met 3 other writers, all in different places on their writing journeys and all further along toward actual representation and publication than I. I learned a great deal from each of them, about their experience and how each had a way of blending their ‘day-jobs’ and writing. It was wonderful to spend time speaking with them, and making progress with my book was an added bonus.

I actually so loved the set up at Arvon that I came home with resolutions: plans to better engage with other writers, and to set up a writing space at home that mirrored the Arvon set up. I even got agreement from work for a broader overhaul to my portfolio that would give me space to write whilst continuing to meet my career goals. I set myself on a count-down until end of June to complete the work transition, and to create my Arvon-esque writing space at home.

Here at the end of May, the transformation at home is complete and I have a writing conference in early July to keep me on the right track. From the start of July I’m embarking on a 3 month experiment. Using my annual leave, I’m going to replicate my new writing buddies and spend a day a week at my little desk in my new writing space. Small goal by small goal, each week I’ll get closer to that bigger goal – the finished novel.

I’m excited. Regardless of my success, I’ll finally be able to say I wrote a complete novel. And if it doesn’t go to plan? Well, I figure I’ll still know that I actually tried: I’ll have committed to it and have the opportunity to learn something for whatever I try next.