Remember how I wanted to make lockdown count? I wanted to say I was able to do something with 2020 and therefore I was determined to finish another novel? 

Well, finish another novel I did! In fact, I was so in love with the story and the characters that it was hard to peel me away from it towards the end. 

I outlined it – something I had never done before – and that worked really well. 

I made a point of setting aside time each day – 9pm-midnight – that, too, worked really well, up to 4000 words a night would appear and I’d find myself, still writing at 2am (often on a night when I had to be up for work in the morning). Luckily I’d been remote working for over a year before covid struck.  

But another thing that spurred me on was that one night whilst reading an entertaining romance novel, and considering my new venture into romance was flying along, I checked to see whether the imprint was taking submissions. 

My writing is, I hope, at the very least entertaining after all... 

...and they were taking submissions. 

But at the time there was no deadline as to when that submission window might close. 

Concerned that the excess reading the editors were doing during lockdown would dry up as soon as the lockdown started to ease, and knowing what I’m like for procrastination, I opted to keep to my word, finish that novel and see if I could submit it before they chose to close their doors. 

The draft was ready in time for my self-imposed deadline date of the 7th of August – as, yes ladies and gents I’m that odd. The publisher promised a 12 week reply and 12 weeks from that very day was the Friday before Halloween. 

Even though this book isn’t in anyway spooky or supernatural – in the strictest sense, anyway – it seemed like a very me milestone. Time to get some reading done, relax my mind while the world kept on spinning at a new weird angle. 

Now, what I hadn’t remembered, in full at least, was the agonising wait that submitting any of my writing to just about anyone has always brought me, and the inner voice that screams; 

AM I ANY GOOD AT THIS SHIT? 

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? 

The imprint in question is part of one of the “Big 5”, and the last time I submitted to (a different imprint within) this particular member of that club I knew that I was on the slush pile with 4560 other writers.   

They too promised to get back to us within 12 weeks. Then they realised how much of a nightmare it would be to get through that level of material and it wiped out a year. 

A YEAR. 

(Well 51 weeks almost exactly, I still have the emails) 

However, they kept us up to date. Each time they emailed to say they had whittled the pile down a bit further and a bit further and that if you had been unsuccessful you would have heard by now. The last I heard before getting my rejection was that I had made it to the top 250 and that second reads were in process. Exciting stuff, and a story I still tell anyone, including you, who’ll pay attention. 

That book was awful looking back and it didn’t do so well when I cleaned it up the first time around and self-published it. I believe in the character set, so I’ve been trying to shape it up ever since in the belief that the longer I work as a professional writer in another capacity, the better my writing might be becoming. 

I tell myself I won’t care when the rejection letter comes, so long as someone enjoyed it. 

I also know that’s not true and I’ll wonder if I’m actually really crap at this game and want to quit. Of the three friends I offered a beta copy to, one has read it and proclaimed it to be the best thing I’ve written so far... progress is progress even if it still isn’t worthy of a bestseller list, so I’ll take that. 

So here we are nearing the end of February 2021, and it’s been 6 months since I let my romance novel out of the nest. 

At first the reading holiday was great, then as we spilled over the 12 week mark and I knew I should be getting on with the sequel my one reader had already requested, I locked up, even though the idea is there. The self-doubt was hitting HARD. Day-job work stress wasn’t helping. Then lockdowns 2 and 3 hit HARDER.  

I wouldn’t call myself blocked for the last 3-6 months, it feels more ridiculous than that. Not knowing where to go next is more like it. There are two supernatural novels to fix, a sequel to write and to add to the torture (I mean adventure) another romance to continue now I’ve entered a competition with another of the big 5 – I've promised myself I’ll continue with it even if I don’t make the next stage. 

After all that the answer is I’m one giant stress ball sitting on three completed novels, two that need editorial work, one under submission. To add to my hoarding pile there are at least 50 ideas and 5 rough outlines sitting on my phone, in notepads and my hard drive. Maybe it’s the fear of failure, maybe it’s the fear of rejection before it’s happened. My dream is to write products that entertain, but I’m worried that I’m not even interesting enough to make someone sick.