So that’s been my motto for the past few months.  Tip away, do a little bit everyday and sure it’ll be grand.  But last night I realised that it will be far from grand if I don’t change gear (from crawl to speed of light) and start upping my game. This realisation left me sitting in despair at the computer for a long, long time …

… despair that soon turned to Fear …

… heeebeeejeeebees kinda fear which quite quickly lead to blind panic …

…. sweet baby Jesus but how would you be well! So after plenty of deep breaths …

I started to calm down.  I have a deadline. It’s August.  Absolutely ages away.  Months and months.  Sure I have loads of time.  What’d be wrong with you at all if you couldn’t get it done with aaaaall that time sprawled out ahead of you! But, when I started analysing what I need to do that’s when things got scary.  45,000 words of the book to write by then.  15 weeks in total, but take away one week for the 5000 word assignment that is due in on the 8th of May.  So 14 weeks which broken down means around 3200 words per week, 500 words per day, 7 days a week.  Highly achievable, but my track record is a bit tarnished when it comes to the daily word count (just read back on all the empty promises I have made since I started this blog!).

Now, strangely enough, I have come to realise, that despite my history, my fear, my panic, at the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach I have a reassuring belief in myself.  This is a new thing for me.  I can have moments of self belief, but I have never had a continuous voice in my head telling me it will be done.  Days where this voice is quieter than others, struggling to be heard over the louder voices (I have many voices in my head friends….be afraid, be very afraid), but this is not to say that it isn’t there.  It is.  When I take the time to centre myself and focus on what I truly believe then this voice sings from the rooftops.  I can do this and I will.  There is no alternative.

So today, on the train to Dublin, and now sitting here on the return leg of the journey, I am mapping out how to get this thing done.  Deadlines are frightening, but they are also good.  If I didn’t have this deadline looming over me then I would probably faff along for the next few years, growing more red faced and ashamed each time someone asked me how the book was coming.  I would become one of those “writers” that people described using the nail-bitingly annoying hand gesture for inverted comas! In some warped way, breaking down the task in hand has made it more manageable and … dare I say … appealing.

So now in my zen like state, body and  mind floating in the creative space of possibility and hope, I am ready to begin the next leg of the journey.

Peace and love my little butterflies.

Deb x