Too Much Writing?

Too much writing seems to be a thing in my life nowadays. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m in this business to write; that’s why I’m here after all. I enjoy the process and delight at the outcome. But it does seem, of late, that things have cranked up a gear. Let me explain.

Writing today seems to have become a fragmented experience. When I started out, many years ago, penning a little story just to see where it would lead, I thought I understood a process. Then September 2018 happened; I published Havoc. That set in motion a whole new world for me. I’d created a bunch of characters, and now I wanted to see what would happen to them in subsequent volumes. So I feverishly started to write Blast. But I had slipped up. I had to publicise Havoc at the same time. I decided to write this blog. Now, I’d followed other writers, and I found it amazing how many had a blog page on their website with only a couple of entries; before they lost heart and moved on to something else. Even more-so, writers who had a blog page with nothing on it. I resounded not to let that happen to my blog page. If you, the reader, had taken the time to click on the page then you deserved fresh content delivered on a regular timescale. Rather naively, I decided to write a blog piece once a week, (or come up with a damned good reason for not doing so). So, here I found myself, writing Blast and writing a blog page at the same time. That wouldn’t have been too hard had I settled at that - but I didn’t did I.

It seems that I’m my own worst enemy. Having decided to write the blog, I also came up with the idea of offering readers more background information on the world I had created. That’s why I put up all the artwork and character sheets on the website. But it still felt a bit thin. I therefore decided to offer another side to the blog; what I call my Histories. I wanted to flesh out the world I had created and reward the reader for visiting my site. So now I was writing a new book, a weekly blog and a set of histories.

Then came forward planning; writing stuff for future books and articles. This one is a little harder to quantify as it happens a little bit more haphazardly. But let just say there’s usually several pieces on the go at any one time. Now, I run my main computer with ten work spaces open at a time, spread across two very large screens. Currently, at the time of writing, I have five documents open, across three writing applications. It’s lucky I have a swivel chair, is all I can say. And this doesn’t even touch the five or six notebooks I have scattered around the room. So here I can ask the question again - Too much writing?

And yet I wouldn’t swap it for all the tea in china - No really. 

N.B. I should say for the record - I am not a touch typer. My head is constantly angled toward the keyboard in the vain hope of completing all the days tasks - Wish me luck.