I don’t tend to make new year’s resolutions. It’s always seemed a bit weird to me that we should change our behaviours because of the arbitrary position of the planet in respect of a calendar that was created a couple of thousand years ago. That said, the beginning of a new year does feel like an opportunity to start with a clean slate.
The only new year’s resolution I can recall making was made thirty years ago yesterday. I decided that enough was enough. I was going to start writing a novel and, more importantly, after numerous stalled attempts, I was determined I was going to finish the damn thing. I set myself some ground rules (1. outline the story in full first, 2. write a minimum of one page every single day, and 3. no editing whatsoever would be done until each draft was finished), and by mid-May 1994, I’d finished STRAIGHT TO YOU.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. I know you have, because I wrote a similar post ten years ago, when I rewrote and re-released STRAIGHT TO YOU for it’s twentieth anniversary. I’m still very glad I did that, because the original version was frigging awful.
It’s funny how you can lose perspective sometimes, and I’ve definitely done that on more than one occasion over the years. I was fortunate to have a massive boost to my career in the late noughties when I published HATER and the book found its way into the hands of some incredible folks who helped me find a larger audience than I’d ever dared dream. Since then, for much of the time I think I’ve been guilty of trying too hard to make the same thing happen again (but hey, it was an incredible time, so who wouldn’t?). What’s the expression I’m looking for? It’s not so much that I was waiting for lightning to strike twice, more that I was trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Again.
Sitting here at my desk today, I’ve been thinking back to those times, and also remembering how I felt way back in January 1994, and again in late 2005 when I started work on HATER. On both occasions I had a blank sheet of paper (actually, a blank screen), and no plan other than to write the story I wanted to tell at the time.
I’ll be honest, as I’ve approached the beginning of my fourth decade as a serious writer (fourth decade! as a ‘serious’ writer?!), I’ve been feeling a bit lost. Disillusioned. I’m in limbo, not sure where I’m going or what I’ll find when I get there. The industry continues to change, the world continues to change, I continue to change… it’s funny, the only thing that’s remained relatively constant over the last thirty years (and one day) is the buzz of enjoying writing something new, then finding out that people have enjoyed reading it. So the plan for 2024, I think, is to do just that – to write and keep writing. No deadlines, no pressure, just words. I had a great time with my 12STORIES project throughout 2023, and I want to expand that sense of adventure and experimentation, without any expectations. Who knows where it’ll take me?
I have a couple of novels in the pipeline that should see the light of day this year, so if I crash and burn and end up putting together little more than a shopping list, I’ll still have some words to share with you!
So, yeah, maybe this stripped back approach is my new year’s resolution for 2024. In any event, happy birthday to STRAIGHT TO YOU, and a Happy New Year to you. Here’s hoping it’s a good one for all of us (though on recent form, I’m not holding my breath). On the bright side, I’m sure there’ll be no shortage of dystopian headlines to inspire me. Thirty years ago the world was a much simpler place: climate change felt like a distant concern, AI was the preserve of dodgy scifi movies, global pandemics seemed unlikely… Who knows what the next 12 months will bring? I reckon the challenge is going to be trying to keep one step ahead of the news and get the fiction out there before it becomes fact!
