I'm talking about Christmas, of course. Today, we ate our delicious New Year’s Day dinner, and had yet another Christmas pudding to finish our meal - bought, I hasten to add, half-price from the Co-op around the corner in-between Christmas and New Year for £1.50!
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| Before the fun began |
We even had crackers, and did an excellent job of setting fire to the pudding (boys will be boys!) just like we did on Christmas Day. For our family, New Year's day is another chance to celebrate together, but, now, alas, it’s time to take down the decorations and pack them away for another year.
I’ve often thought this about my writing. Packing it away, I mean. As an unpublished (but ever-aspiring writer) I do sometimes wonder about packing it all in. Giving it up. Putting it away - so to speak - after all, if I was going to be published, surely it would have happened by now, wouldn’t it?
But, whenever I think about not writing again, I come out in a hot sweat. I mean, I’ve just had the email from the lovely Janice Preston of the RNA telling me I’ve successfully held on to my place on the NWS, so I can’t waste that, now, can I?
And, I’ve also spent a lot of the Christmas period preparing for Kate Walker’s Advanced Writing course in Fishguard in February. There will be more preparation to do before I arrive at Fishguard in the form of reading Kate’s new book A Proposal To Secure His Vengeance so having done all that, I will have wasted my money if I give it all up, won't I?
And then there are the competitions I intend to enter this year - the closing date for one of them - #TheGreatBritishWriteOff - is 15 January, and the preparation for that will have gone down the drain, too. There's also a chance to win a publishing contract in the Good Housekeeping Novel Competition this year so wasting that opportunity seems foolhardy.
So, whenever I think about giving up writing, I say to myself - what will you do instead?
Well, maybe 2018 will be the year I'll take up the golf lessons I've been promising myself, or walking more - doing my 10,000 steps a day and more at the weekends - or putting the house up for sale? Yes, this could be the year we do that, too.
Yeah, right.
You see, if I do any of those things at all, I will fit them in around my writing.
Giving up for me is not an option. Even if the desired publication deal never comes my way, I will always write. It's part of who I am, and always will be.
Happy New Year.
Until next time.
Kim x
