A Little Bit of Time travel

They say that time flies when you're having fun. Well actually, time also flies when you're not having such fun times, but only when it;s over and done and you can look back.

Scroll back to February 2014, (edges go blurry, and wobbly, as indicates travelling back in time), I am sitting in the conservatory tapping away at my laptop, dogs laying close by. Chapter 21 is complete.

Fast forward to September 2014, I have been struggling to be creative but have finally completed chapter 22.There is no longer a conservatory or dogs in the image.

Another jump forward to November 2014 and another chapter complete. 

Major changes have rocked my life and darker times are looming ahead.

The book remains untouched, my world falls apart...

Time travel forward to February 2016, almost 2 years on from my last truly creative spell, and suddenly the story is progressing. Living through the last 2 years has been difficult, but I'm settled again, content with my life and the muse appears to be back. I have begun writing before, only for it to come to an abrupt halt, so this time, I keep my own council. I am near the end, I struggle with a section then decide it works as well without it, so I leave it out. I want a good ending, it needs to work...

Suddenly, I am there. 25 chapters, done, finished, my first book complete.

Well, ok, it needs editing, proofreading, sending out for beta reading. But in essence, I have completed the task, the excitement I had for this project is back, I enthuse when I speak to people of what I am working on.

Suddenly, the last 2 years have disappeared. I focus on a phrase that works for me:

When one door closes another one opens. The thing is we are normally so focused on the door that closed, we forget to look through the door that has opened, and that is usually where our focus needs to be, that is where the new opportunities are. Forget the regret and recriminations that belong to the closed door, it is pointless. 

So now, it's April. The edit process if halfway done, I have feedback from new readers, and it is still good feedback. I am encouraged to continue to my goal of publishing my first novel. It feels so close, I can almost see it on the bookshelf in Waterstones.