This week I’ve learned…it’s OK to start again

Remember that blog I wrote about following the path of lights through the woods and learning to recognise when I’ve made a wrong turn? Yeah, that skill still needs some work.

I started Book three on January 1st, and from the beginning I had niggling reservations about it. Characters, plot, setting – all these featured things I loved, but it didn’t light a spark the way the previous two books had. I plodded doggedly on, imagining on some days that I’d turned a corner and it was all going to be fine.

Reader, I had not turned a corner and it was not fine. There were things about the story I thought had potential, but it wasn’t right. So three weeks ago I moved all 30,000 words into the graveyard of abandoned ideas. I’m not going to lie, it kind of hurt.

But in the immortal words of Aaliyah (RIP) - If at first you don't succeed, then dust yourself off and try again. The next day I wrote a synopsis for something entirely new, inspired by (I shit you not) reading a post on Facebook about a hair straightener fire.

Three weeks later I’ve written 40,000 words and I’m having an absolute ball. It feels entirely different, and I’m annoyed that I wasted six weeks grinding away at something that clearly wasn’t working. You live and learn, right?