Rachel, not writing

Sometimes, life gets in the way of writing. I just moved: it wasn’t intentional, but as I’m currently renting and the owner of the property passed away, the tenancy ended. So, I embarked on househunting and moving madness and all the accompanying admin, made rather more challenging by my husband being abroad for the duration.

In some ways, it wasn’t such a bad thing. It was a well-timed fresh start, as it’s been quite difficult to let go of  ‘The Syndrome Diaries’ and get stuck into a new project. However, I really ought to have been marketing on full throttle as Christmas is a peak time for book purchases and for people to receive empty Kindles. And I didn’t. I also did almost no work on my PhD, at a time when I ought to have been promoting a study (if you’re planning on starting an exercise programme in the first quarter of 2013, you can take part: info is here and the link to sign up is here – that’s my shameless plug done for this blog).

So how many copies of Syndrome have I sold recently? Erm, not very many. But I received my first royalty payment! It wasn’t huge, but to have earned money from the novel is such a fantastic feeling. It was a bit like crossing the finishing line the first time I ran a marathon. And in many ways, the same principles are involved: consistent effort, keeping going when you have a setback and never giving up.

So I haven’t given up. I’ve taken a couple of old bits of writing along to the writing group, and had my first stab in many years at writing a short story, inspired by this rather wonderful book. And four seven-hour flights in a month (two visits to hubby) have given me lots of reading time, which is great for inspiration. So I may have slacked off, but I’m re-energised and raring to go in 2013.