Today has been one of those days where I just could not be productive. Let me explain: every once in a while4, all writers get that time where the ideas do not flow and maybe the motivation just isn’t there. They happen; it’s best not to dwell on them I find when they do come along.

I’ve nearly finished the book. There’s maybe a few thousand words to go, and then it’s a case of handing it over to the editor to go through and translate the lapses into Jennyspeak back into English. You would have thought that this close to the end there would be a second wind and away I would go. Well, not always. Today was one of those days where it just didn’t come. I went out for a walk to the supermarket instead. It was nice to get out and about. Tehre’s still around 45 minutes before I go to bed, so I might write a little yet, but it certainly won’t get completed tonight.

I’m not bothered by the odd day. I think the worst period of writers’ block was a period of around two and a half years. That really was scary. In quite a contrast to that, the last 18 months have been the most productive of my writing career, and I even managed to hold down a fulltime job plus overtime during that time too. So one day here and there isn’t going to hurt. We’ll see how tomorrow goes before I start really becoming a whingy drama llama.

At times like this I find it best not to try and force it. Forced writing rarely works at all. It’s just a mess and jolts along like a farm tractor over a ploughed field. I find doing something completely different really does help, like a walk in the fresh air, a browse of the shops or even just watching a DVD or reading a book.

At the moment I’ve been reading a book called ‘More than Human’ by Theodore Sturgeon. It’s apparently considered a classic, and at times I could almost see why. There are good bits in it of well-written prose. When it all starts to come together, hell, I like his style. But there is very little plot, and the bits that link the good bits are hard to follow, jolt and are, quite frankly, really boring. All in all it is a book that I would say doesn’t really deserve its ‘classic’ status. Actually, I think he should have got a better editor, then it might have made a really, really good short story. As a book it simply just sucks.