Having started some intense scribbling in my notebook for book 3, I decided to maybe reopen the draft and start to write some stuff in - this usually takes a bit of time to built up steam, and the draft starts to take shape.

Holy hell batman! I opened the draft document not really sure when I’d last opened it… and there’s a date at the top: January 2020. January 2020, remember that?

The year didn’t start well for me… I got a huge steam burn on my arm from a new kettle and me not being fully awake as I reached over it, yes over it, to get a tea bag (it has since been moved)… and as we all know it got worse from there!!

I didn’t write a novel in lockdown… actually my work became super busy. I work in research and even though I’ve never worked in virology or public health there was a huge pull of researchers from various disciplines working together. Research calls were coming thick and fast in those early days and I got stuck into the research development work around that. Its probably just as well that I was busy because in our first lockdown I spent nearly 100 days just me and the dog - I could only bring myself to count it recently.

Fiction writing is something I really enjoy, and I write when I want to. I probably do write something every day but mostly it’s not fiction. I write fiction when I have the headspace, and can really enjoy it. The full draft of book 2 was completed in the before times. Even the edits have taken extra long mainly for reasons to do with me and my headspace!

Hopefully there’ll be a bit of a return to headspace - the sign is the exploratory scribblings. I’m optimistic that I might get some flow back to… Writing can be tough but I really love it. I enjoy the flow of the words, thinking about the perspectives of characters. Sometimes I feel absolutely amazing if I write a good sentence, or sentiment. It’s like a runner’s high, except without all the sweating!