The Doldrums

This is what seamen of old called a place of no wind where they couldn't sail forward. It's also the perfect word for when you've slowed right down with your writing—and it's where I am now. I've started a new Gothic book, and I did some serious research for it, sleeping in a creepy four-poster bed in a haunted 900-year-old mansion. After that, I wrote like a demon. But now I have to introduce the evil hero and what I think of as The Confusion, and I just haven't mulled it over enough yet. The Doldrums are OK (and mulling it all over is OK). It’s an important part of writing.

Try not to focus too much on getting published. Focus on writing. Keep a diary that doesn't have to be written every day—write down fears, fights, hopes, confusion, everything. Writing something down is naming it, and when you name something you start to know it.

It's absolutely wonderful to have your stuff published and get paid for it—but it would be the same stuff if it didn't get published! It's the writing itself that matters.

Let's discuss!

Kate Cann
Author of California Holiday