As some of you might know, I switched jobs in early May, and it’s been an incredibly busy time. This month, it feels like most of the non-work things have been completely pushed out of my head because the level of busyness went up a notch. In fact, it was so busy that when I saw Chelsea’s lovely BookTube review of Small Places, I did a double take and had to remind myself that, yes, I had written that.
Of course, it’s not been helped by the fact that I’ve been supporting another writer in editing their forthcoming book and – counter-intuitively – changing from UK English to US English, which is tough for a Brit!
So, what’s coming up? Well, Dusk is still sat in a roughly finished state, but it needs editing. I’ve done two rounds of edits, but I still feel like it’s missing some of that state of wonder that I really want to convey. Of course, when you have days when you start work at ten to eight in the morning and finish at half past ten in the evening, there’s little space for wonder, but I’m hoping that the Christmas break will be very restful and help to restore my authorial drive.
And that raises an interesting thought that occurred to me a few weeks ago. I tend to go through relatively existential phases every so often; I was quite religious until about ten years ago, parting ways after binge-reading a number of religious texts and not finding contentment with any of them, or the philosophical books I’d been reading alongside them. I’d steeled myself to there being no one over-arching meaning to life, until I realised that there was perhaps more than a little truth to Brandon Sanderson’s maxim of Journey before Destination.
After all, what if the journey itself was the meaningful part? What if you could aspire to live in a continuous state of both working towards something meaningful, but also enjoy the journey itself? Wouldn’t that be the best kind of meaning? That’s essentially where I’ve gotten to – working towards a continuous state of looking for, and being in wonder, whether that’s reading, gaming, watching films and TV, or writing, because when I’m in that state, it feels like not only a good use of time, but also that it’s contributing to something more meaningful – I feel like I’m experiencing something immensely worthwhile, and that it supports my overall journey to showing that wonder in my books as well. Obviously, this is a fairly lofty aspiration, but is certainly useful in working out what is worthwhile in terms of my free time.
Apologies for going ‘full beam’, and I hope that doesn’t make me sound like some kind of crazed monkish figure, but it’s been a relatively interesting part of my authorial journey, so I figured it was worth sharing.
Stay safe, and a very happy Christmas to you all.