October? No way! [or] Phew, for a minute there I lost myself.


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3rd October 2014

Hello all

My god, is it really October?

What the hell just happened?

So, I’m back. And, in the interests of total honesty something big just happened that I can’t quite put my finger on. It wasn’t good though. It’s difficult to describe but I suppose I can understand the expression I have heard previously, the one about hitting a wall. I don’t think I hit it though. Rather, smashed straight through it and ten more.

All I remember is racing headlong; trying to meet the deadline for The Page. I was literally working 7am until 6pm at my day job, getting home and writing. Writing long long hours, perhaps from 7pm until 3am before catching a little sleep and starting the cycle again. Pizza Express and Coca-Cola would have seen a spike in sales in the Yorkshire area. That was me.

The deadline was fast approaching and I was repeating the pattern day in day out perhaps 5 nights a week. For five or six weeks. It was getting closer and I was supremely confident that The Page would be out for end September as planned.

At the end of July, I sent the manuscript to the editor for a final checks. She was on a tight deadline too. We needed to turn it around in ten days to make the publishing date. She did her thing. I received her comments. Her alterations. Her suggestions.

And that was it. There seemed to be so many. Page after page had change after change.

“It’s not clear, Jonathan.”

“I don’t understand this?”

“What does this mean?”

“Why would he do that?”

“Change the wording.”

“Rubbish. Cut down.”

And so it went on. And I stopped.

I literally couldn’t face it. Each comment was another confirmation of failure. There was no way that I could change so much. One section needed completing rewriting. I’m talking 15,000 words. There was no way I could do it. The Page was over. I hated it. I honestly felt like deleting it completely. Remove it from the computer, the external hard drives, the flash cards. Pretend it never happened.

That was it. And I sunk.

The publisher was informed they weren’t going to get it. I ignored the editor. I ignored everyone. It was only my long suffering girlfriend who persuaded me not to give in. Not to scrap it.

August came and went. September predictably joined in. And I tentatively began to look at it again. It wasn’t that bad. The comments weren’t as bad as I remembered. There were compliments sprinkled in here and there between amendments. I went back to it. And began to write again. It felt good. I felt a little better. Maybe an hour a day to start. Build it up over time. No pressure.

And now, a month later it really is almost there. And we have a new release date – 28th February 2015.

And it’s good. I really have fallen in love with it again.

I hope you’ll like it too.

Thanks for waiting.

Jonathan