If at first you don't succeed...

I'm back on track again! After writing my last blog post on why writing wasn't getting any easier, I decided it was time to rise above notebooks. 

I stuck brown packing paper to the wall and I began to scribble. I jotted down all the action timelines of my different characters and miraculously it all came together. It's not crystal clear, I'm not sure I'd swim in it, but it's not too muggy either.   

Could it be the meditating? The yoga? Not drinking? I don't know which. Perhaps a combination. I just know my new routine has given me the space and mental energy to get down the first 10,000 words of my novel this week. Decent words too, not first draft literary diarrhea. 

Looking back through my posts I noticed that it wasn't all that long ago I was raving about a similar super duper routine; how I was getting up early and doing yoga and bla bla bla... and I don't know what happened because I was really feeling good by the sound of it...

But as that gorgeous Karl in Love Actually once said: Life is full of interruptions and complications... 

That doesn't mean we can't pick it up again. Or just implement whatever change just one or two days a week. And if we don't manage that, start with once a month. There isn't a time limit on going after what you want. 

Just start wherever, whenever. Don't set impossible goals. Don't decide to run more than you've ever run before work, or write more than you've ever written after work when you're knackered, or lose stupid amounts of weight in two weeks... so many people set themselves up for failure then get demoralised and never try again.

Very likely I'll fall out of this routine and I'll come back to this post and wonder why, if I was feeling so good, did I stop. Well, I'm not a robot and life isn't black or white. 

My aim is to be healthy, happy and write loads of books I'm proud of - so I'll keep coming back to the routine that helps me get there again and again.. and again!

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