Where is the damned book?

I was very tempted to title this entry ‘the best laid plans of mice and men’ but I figure one literary reference in the title is enough – two is just showing off.  Given that Sunday mornings are my sleep in mornings it says a lot that I am up and about at 8.14 am, rather either still sleeping or reading a book in bed.  This is what I get for watching Eat, Pray, Love last night and promptly feeling guilty for letting my routine get out kilter – and for abandoning yoga for a year.

Once the movie was finished I marched my fuzzy, little self down here to The Writing Room (love the Pooh Bear capitals?) and decided to knock out a couple of hundred words.  The writers among you probably know what I am about to say.  Nothing happened.  I’m not sure if it was because I was tired or because I was still really thinking about Liz Gilbert or if it just wasn’t the right moment, but I found myself at a deadlock.  So, I made the mistake of casting a quick eye over what I had already written – and that, folks, was that.  I was back in my old familiar place of “what on earth do you think you are trying to do woman?  This is rubbish.”

This is a familiar place for me – I start off feeling confident, I make the decision to just put everything on the page and worry about it after and then I hit this “oh jeez who am I kidding – nobody is ever going to read this garbage” plateau.  I know this plateau so well I am just about ready to start decorating it and calling it home.

Last night, I decided I would try and break through the plateau with some advice from other writers so went in search of a book I have called See Jane Write – a book intended to guide aspiring Chick Lit writers.  Unfortunately in my last wave of tidying, I must have tidied the damned thing away somewhere safe – and I’m damned if I know where.  I was doing so well too, after the online course I had done.  SIGH.

Which means I either have to untidy the house,  or retidy it, or battle on without the book.  I’m not sure that any of these are actually viable options so here I sit on my plateau, cross and bored with myself and wondering what on earth to do next.

No book, short story, or anything else is going to see daylight if I am forever trapped on this plateau and unable to break through the first 5,000 words.  Never mind whether it’s good, bad, or otherwise – I just want to finish it (and boot that stupid damned interior editor who keeps bringing me to this plateau out for good).

Any writers out there who have been on this plateau and know how to find the exit – please help.  Send me a torch or  a map or something.  Anything.  I’m lost in here and I don’t even have any chocolate.

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