The last few weeks have been spent not writing but those endless hours ones spends with the cogs turning, the kettle boiling, and the stagnant pool of my story, with barely a ripple to pass across its surface, I’ve stared into its murky depths and found that it did not stare back.

Writing should possess you, demand you, crawl inside your skin and burn.

I’ve had too much else to think about lately to spend time writing, but more importantly needed to give the story time to breathe.

Sometimes standing back to assess the work, rather than just working, is needed, and it has unfortunately made me aware of inherent faults in my writing.

“You must write, write, write!”

Sometimes you need to think. Have it running around your head while you drive home, in the shower, walking in the rain.

There was something wrong with my story, and I didn’t know what it was or how to fix it.

It was terrible.

It gave me nightmares and frustrated me, writing time was spent on other creative writing prompts because I couldn’t find what was wrong with the story.

Then my editor said something about the Last Prophecy to me and its editing phase, and I realized where I’d gone wrong. I hadn’t treated my main character with enough of a voice. He simply told me what was happening, he wasn’t experiencing it, it was as emotional as a plank of wood. The emotions were written down but I wasn’t feeling them.

Perhaps it has more to do with my own emotions at the time, my own personal demons and all the real life things getting in the way of those deeper creative thoughts, needing time to just feel what my character felt than parrot what was happening to him.

If he’s not real to me, he’s not real to you.

I needed time and so did he, and I needed to do a lot of serious rework on characters in the story, plot lines and motives, and I know it will be better for it, but this is thousands of words that need to be rewritten and evolved and the work is astronomical given what I’ve already done.

I need time, as much as my characters do. Otherwise it won’t be as good as I see it inside.

I still hope to show you the second novella and first book in the series before the year is out, and if not the story will still be better for it.

Sometimes everyone needs time, not as in more hours in the day, but those intangible moments were the thought you had been chasing finds its own way to you in its own time. Those can’t be counted or measured or planned for, but they are important.