At the Starting Blocks

It took two hours of careful construction, but my new writing desk came into being on Friday evening. I’ve built a few items of furniture over the last week but this was the toughest, mainly because it was so large compared to the others. Much sweating and swearing was involved – especially when I realized I’d installed the drawer runners the wrong way round. A quick fix was applied (with some more swearing) and I got there in the end.Then it was time to bring my trusty old Mac out of haitus. It was dusted down, warmed up, applications installed, updates applied, backups taken, directories re-arranged, clouds utilized, and finally after all of that, it was ready to go. Or at least it looks like it. More importantly, it looks like I’m ready to go too.

So what first?

I’ve two pretty large projects neither of which I feel as though I’m ready to just dive into, not so soon after not having written anything of substance over the past couple of years. That’s not to say the ideas aren’t there – they are – I just haven’t acted on them yet.

The completion of GATECRASH in particular requires a proper look, in particular second half of the book needs given a new direction and a total overhaul. The first half works well I feel, but the second is just a mess; thrown together in order to get over the finish line of a NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It needs some serious work. But I’ll come to that.

The obvious thing to do then is get my mind back into the right state of mind. The STELLA re-issue should help with that then, because although it’s not writing as such, it’s in that bubble and will help to motivate in the right direction.

I also have it on my GDR list to publish a new chapbook. There are several ways to go with this and it also means having to write, to think about writing actual words in a certain order. I guess what I’m saying is, it means I will actually have to switch on the parts of my brain that have lain dormant; the creative parts; the parts that went into all my other books.

Best get on.