Finally.

I’ve been so slow writing the sequel to Follow Your Fantasy that even the Diary of Writer’s Block didn’t get much action. It was mostly in the block part of the process. My productive times being Sept for a couple of days, Oct for one and December for a chunk that began with dropping dating and ended with the interference of Christmas.  Which is a pity as my last entry was so optimistic.

The critical thing is that I’ve lost my fear of this book. I’ve got 7500 words done and it’s not perfect but not bad either and I can see where I’m going. The great thing about having a path is that, secure on it, other paths are visible and I can mark them to explore later or have a wander down them as I go. The journey is underway. I don’t even feel the need to write it up here so I only will if there is something interesting to say, for good or bad. Assume all is well if I don’t call in!

All was not well.

January killed everything. I was having a jolly old time of it in 2013 and felt no need for the Big Restart. Trying to ignore the New Year didn’t work either. It ruined everything, including the writing flow I had got into in December.

I extended the no-dating thing which had been working so well and, while I didn’t miss it, the ban had stopped helping with focussing on writing. By February I had another excuse — promo for the Valentine’s Day release of Follow Your Fantasy. That sort of carried over into March when I was nearly on Lorraine Kelly with Morton Harket of AHA. Fate, in the form of extended coverage of the Antipodean Royal Tour, meant I was dropped last minute and the biggest chance the book had of widescale promotion disappeared. Book sales are so much about luck.

Anyway, I wrote sporadically until June, which is to say hardly ever. I was 20,000 words in by May and really struggling.

I’ve since realised partly why. Psychological factors tied up with still being afraid of this book. I wrote about it for Books by Women, which was a nice piece of procrastination in Oct, following a summer of my summer job which never leaves time for writing.

I struggled on in fits and starts of incessant wordcounting through autumn and was much encouraged by my boyfriend’s reading of it (since I wasn’t writing, I figured I may as well go and meet The One). It “works”apparently so that’s very reassuring.

And then NaNoWriMo at about the 5,000 words left mark. I was determined to get it written and edited in the month and amazed myself with some pretty solid scenes that flowed from the spring of inspiration instead of enforced writing — oddly since NaNo is all about enforced writing. I had a magical cafe and a few writing buddies from my writing group and I did it!

A huge relief. OK, so I maybe am happier with the title than the book but I think this stage of loathing for your recently produced work is normal. So, Further Into Your Fantasy is now with my editor and I am free to write whatever the hell I want in the interim.

I have a much better idea of what the promo trail needs this time around, although Nicola Jane’s persona is going to look very different — heavily pregnant. If that doesn’t quite work as well for the erotica, it’s lucky I turned out to be quite good on the radio…