It took me ten years to realise, I am my block

Or how I finally learnt to get out of my own way

Yesterday I wrote two words I thought I’d never write again: The End.

It has been ten years, more even, since I last finished a novel. Nine and a half since The Woman Who Ran was published – to incredibly kind reviews (that took everyone by surprise!) and sales of the tumbleweed variety. Those who read it seemed to love it. It’s just that there weren’t so many of them. I could go off on one here about why that might be, but enough about that. Other than to say that that experience, along with various other events in the second half of the 2010s, took my confidence and ground it brutally into the floor.

After that I didn’t write another (fictional*) word. Until January 3rd this year.

I am – was – my own block. Me and my self-created enabler, the old busy busy busy.

So yesterday, when I typed those two words at the end of the previous 80,000 (80,249 if we’re counting, and god knows I am) and 101 days (14 of which were lost to long Covid. Fourteen! Two whole weeks out of three and a half months!) it represented, for me, not just the end of a first draft but the slow chipping away at a block engraved with the words You can’t. You’re not good enough. You haven’t got it in you.

There was plenty of practical advice that helped me get here, each piece a tiny stepping stone that kept me going, and I’ll put that at the end of this article. But what really made the difference was the long overdue realisation that the block was emotional; what was really stopping me wasn’t time or money or any of the other things I used as reasons excuses. What was stopping me, was me.