As one life-episode ends and a new one begins, the first one doesn’t necessarily sink into total oblivion.
Sorry to be needlessly obscure and philosophical. Let me elucidate.
I was a writer in a previous life. Until about six years ago, in fact, before I started a little indie publishing company which took over this life and several others, all packed into the same bit of the space-time – especially time – continuum.
Sorry again. Virgin One have started repeating Star Trek at exactly the time I’m having breakfast. I’ll try not to eject the warp coil; though reversing shield polarity might become essential.
I used to think being a writer wasn’t so much a job as a state of mind: that a writer was just something I was, like Welsh, or too badly co-ordinated for team sports, or a Star Trek fan. But a couple of years into Crème de la Crime I realised that in order to be a writer, you have to write. And I wasn’t writing.
I’m still not. Mostly. But any writer will tell you it’s an addiction, and not an easy habit to kick. These days I’m on methadone, in the form of press releases, theatre reviews and blog posts; putting words on paper – well, screen – whatever the form or purpose does take a little of the pressure off and allow me to function normally in other ways. And to resist the temptation to rewrite other people’s novels in my own image. Crème de la Crime authors are pretty good at what they do and don’t need me to do it all over again.
Mostly the substitute drug is effective. But every now and again…
I keep coming across short story competitions – four in the past month. And I have withdrawal symptoms. Strange, because when I ran a big short story competition (another of those previous lives which got overtaken by events) I didn’t feel that way. But now…
Fortunately Crème de la Crime’s annual cycle is approaching the point where I can step off the hamster-wheel for a while and look outside the editing-proofreading-promoting tunnel. The promoting still goes on, of course, and I’ll need to spend some time looking towards the next hamster-wheel; and someone in the background is muttering accounts, so I’ll need to fire up the me-lookalike android with the positronic circuit that deals with numbers and money and all the essential but mind-fuddling stuff.
But there just might be a few un-spoken-for hours when I can feed my addiction.
