Will I Ever...? A writer's life. 12-16 August.
MONDAY
Ticking things off.
Started the week the right way with a brand new TO DO list. Not sure why I bother so obsessively with this, as my thoughts persistently refuse to be disciplined, and I never cross anything off the damn thing anyway. Am starting to think my individual bullet-points are too broad and unachievable in a mere seven days…1) Write A Book; 2) Move To Another Continent…etc.
In the shower this morning, had an epiphany about how I will structure the plot of the third and final book in my ‘Miss’ crime trilogy. Have all my best ideas in the shower (see ‘The Waterproof Notebook’, a Blog post from July 2017). The last book in the series will be called Miss Calculation. I now know how it will begin, and how it’ll end. It’s just the complicated bit in the middle…you know, the story…
When I’m staring slack-jawed and glass-eyed into the middle-distance, I’m not daydreaming. I’m genuinely working very hard indeed on a gnarly plot twist. Honest.
TUESDAY
So long, Summer.
So cold in South East England that the heating came on – in August! Pretty much all I’ve done today is sit indoors with two jumpers on watching the torrential rain bounce off the garden decking, wondering if this is the death-knell for the below-average summer we’ve had this year.
On a more positive (but still watery) note, the ‘phone I dropped down the loo came back to life! Three weeks in the warm cupboard with the boiler, and it’s working a treat. The screen’s a little patchy, but it survived. Can’t help but be impressed by the resilience of complex modern technology. (Did you know, the computer that powered the Apollo mission to the first ever moon landing had less processing capability than the average 21st century SmartPhone?)
Even my far-less-waterproof-than-advertised FitBit mostly recovered from its thorough soaking in the biblically-heavy rain of our last kayak outing. Its’ one niggle? The clock is now 34 minutes slow, and I can’t seem to adjust it. However, I’m more concerned with monitoring my step-count every day (waistline before timeline), fortunately don’t have the kind of life where I ever really need to be anywhere urgently, and anyone who knows me is well-aware I’m serially late for everything. I was even late being born. Perhaps the dodgy watch just provides the perfect excuse I’ve been scrabbling for all these years? “I do apologise, my watch seems to be broken” is much more socially acceptable than, “Sorry, try as I might, I just can’t ever get my act together.”
WEDNESDAY
No death, just taxes.
Satisfyingly crossed one item off my TO DO list: last year’s Tax Return. Does anyone else needlessly put this off? I could do it the very day the reminder letter arrives, but I don’t. My accounts are digital, I don’t have to riffle through reams of paper to find figures; I complete my return online, and realistically it takes me less than an hour to do…and yet I roll my eyes over it like a schoolkid doing homework. Maybe because it’s an obligation, not a choice? Maybe because it’s tax? After all, who delights in paying their taxes? However, I do delight in people fixing the roads, collecting the rubbish, running the hospitals (sort of), and all the other things my tax money is supposed to pay for. I can’t whinge about services being appalling and then refuse to contribute to their upkeep.
Checked my status and discovered that of the 28 years of National Insurance payments I must make to qualify for full State Pension from the Government, I have already made 26 of them! Gulp. It’s quite horrifying to see in official print how flippin’ old you are. It was also depressing to see how minute the State Pension is – and that is on current figures. Given the declining birth rate and ageing population, the seven people still employed and eligible to pay tax in the UK by the time I am 60-odd will clearly not be able to keep me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed. Am both hugely relieved and sickeningly smug that I started a Private Pension in my 20s and have faithfully kept it going all these years. I’m not going to be one of those old dears who lives on cold beans on toast and can’t afford to boil the kettle. I’m going to be one of those old dears on a Caribbean cruise, so leathery with the suntans from my permanent holidays that I resemble a crocodile handbag.
THURSDAY
Born survivor.
Two rejections from UK agents for Many The Miles. The standard “Sorry, not for me” email. Fine; ‘what-everrrrrrr’! Just have to brush it off. Studies show optimists quickly forget life’s knocks, and are therefore more likely to take repeated risks, and make greater progress as a result. Pessimists dwell on past failures, making them reluctant to take a similar leap for a second time, meaning they’re less likely to move forward. Don’t try, and you’ll never know.
As born survivor Everett McCann says in First Sight, my Wyoming-set romance about the unexpected reward of taking a reckless risk in midlife, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
www.annieholder.com/first-sight/
FRIDAY
Unhappy bedfellows.
By nature, I’m not an early riser. If I’m in the shower before 9.00am, I’m having a really successful day. However, I was wide awake at 6.30am, sitting up and gasping as if someone had chucked a bucket of water over me, suddenly remembering I needed to send an important email. I often find a ‘normal’ life and a writer’s life are not mutually compatible. One interferes detrimentally with the other. The story you’re immersed in becomes more lifelike than your physical surroundings. You struggle to get a grip on what really happened, and what you imagined. I like to think I keep a reasonable handle on it most of the time, but occasionally things leap out and catch me unawares – especially at 6.30am, when no self-respecting lady of a certain age and independent means should have to be awake. Things become fretful when I have a busy period of ‘normal’ life (where I have to pretend to be totally on-the-ball), combined with the attractively beguiling tendrils of a new plot, curling seductively to create some interesting twists I’m desperate not to forget in the face of necessary routine. It’s hard to compartmentalise your thoughts when half your job requires unfettered creativity, and the other organised practicality. Stuff bursts free of its bonds and marauds around your head until the boundaries blur. You can’t stifle one to control the other. Both suffer. Eventually, you just have to give in and go with it.
Annie Holder writes pacey thrillers, twist-filled crime novels, and unconventional romances – set all over the world.
You can find out more about her books at www.annieholder.com, and follow her on Instagram www.instagram.com/alhwriter/