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Bookending

Now that A Book of Endings is largely done — for me, at least (until the launches. Stay tuned!) — I can get back to projects I enjoy, have been missing have put off for the interim. My first task was to come up with a timeline to get me through the writing committments until the end of the year (project management fans: yes, I really do mean I made a Gantt chart). Then I prioritised the committments so I know which ones I can give up if I have to. Then I stared at the plan for a while with a kind of ‘holy fuck’ gaze.

Then I closed down the plan and opened up instead my favourite project (of the moment): the Great Unsaleable Novel. Which, I’m pleased to say, on Draft 4 is a lot less unsaleable than it used to be. But as I’m only at the beginning of Draft 4, there is still a shinto-load of work left to be done.

And all this mundane news is delivered in real time to your screens because I am bookending. Not bookmarking, as I read it initially, but bookending: the process of alerting a supportive friend to your plans in order to keep yourself on track, knowing you’ll have to report back later. I followed a link from the Procrastinating Writers to the Relaxed Writer (a journey I’d like to take spiritually myself someday) to find out about bookending & I’m kinda liking the idea.

Apart from the fact that previously whenever I’ve read posts/tweets announcing things like ‘Writing now’, ‘Taking a break from writing now to make dinner’, I’ve always thought, “Who gives a damn?”

But clearly I was in the wrong, & this is EXACTLY the kind of info you should be sharing.

So: I’m writing now.