Writer’s woes – writing two books at once

 

So that writing two books business, how’s that going Joanne?writing-two-books

Actually, not so great. Have you ever tried to eat two elephants? That’s what it’s like. Or giving birth to two babies (I don’t mean like twins. At least twins have the decency to queue, not both rush the exit at once).

And I didn’t help myself at all by being so overwhelmed by the task in hand that that I achieved very little for weeks on end. Writing a book seems so much more permanent, and by implication important, than the online writing I’ve done.

But that’s not even true – many more people have access to work that’s published online than will ever pick up a book and read it. But still, it felt like A Bigger Deal than anything I’d done before, so I panicked a bit and hid my head in the sand. For most of May.

Also, it turns out I have the most appalling goldfish attention span. It’ll be Look! A thing! A thing happening on the internet! and before you know it, it’s four hours later.

Luckily I don’t have to write it all myself, and the response to my call for contributors was great. I think I have about fifty so far, which is fab because I wanted to get as many people involved as possible. And then lots of other work started coming in, which was great too, but still – overwhelm, you know? (BTW I still have a few seats left if you want to get on the contributor bus).

The book about toddlers is about three quarters of the way there now. Whilst there are plenty of good books on the subject, I do think I’ve got new thoughts, angles and advice to offer.

But the real revelation has been the book about fear of driving. It’s turning out to be a very, very common phenomenon – and each person who says to me “I feel this” also says “I thought I was the only one”. So bringing that out into the open feels like a good thing to do.

So right now I am glued to the keyboard most days until late at night. The sun is shining, but I have the deathly hue of someone who’s only had the glow of a computer screen to illuminate them for months. This week I’m spending a few days in London, if only to prove to myself that I can still walk and am not fused to the computer chair. Let’s hope I can manage that without falling over.

 

image: Flickr, Mar Estrama