Another lengthy absence...

Blogging is a tricky thing to fit into life. Well, it is for me. Mostly because I'm quite lazy. It's also very hard to motivate yourself to write, or even sit in front of a computer screen, when you've spent your entire day doing both of those things. Despite my best efforts, I have yet to persuade any managers in my office that writing my personal blog makes a significant contribution to the production of a weekly newspaper, but I live in hope.

But all those things are pathetic excuses for someone who repeatedly states her biggest passion in life is writing. The man sitting next to me has a very black-and-white view of my ambitions in this field - he is frequently heard to mutter, "Just get on with it" whenever I complain about the fact I am not yet a best-selling author. If I examine my feelings about it too closely I fear the main reason for the lack of progress will probably be fear of failure; if you don't start, you can't get it wrong. So I put it off eternally.

But this evening I made real progress: I wrote three sentences. Now, this may not sound much, but I have spent months (in fact it's probably years now) coming up with ideas for books, writing them down, planning out the characters, the plot lines, the significant incidents... and never actually writing a book. Never even starting. So three sentences is real progress for me.

My helpful other half has found me a way of saving my work via the internet, allowing me to work on it from other computers, such as at work (during lunch breaks, naturally) and when we're visiting boring relatives. I've got a notepad filled with plans for my current book which will be fairly essential to the plot and character development, but even if I don't have it with me, the main thing is to get into the habit of writing, right? To stop planning, reading articles about writing, reading other books for 'research', making cups of tea, staring out of the window - and actually write.

It takes a lot for me to discuss my ambitions to be a novelist - up until quite recently I didn't share them with anyone, worrying I might sound completely ridiculous. But some people do get to write books for a living - and some of them are manifestly awful at it - so why shouldn't I give it a go?

I'll keep you updated with the progress - I'm even confident enough to think there will be progress now! - and hopefully might inspire you to persevere with something you've been putting off. It's time to stop procrastinating and start making things happen.

Wish me luck!