The Ten Minutes that Changed everything...

Sometimes it's harder than I think it will be.

If you have been following my social media posts, you may have noticed I'm on holiday. Like most of you, I find daily life gets in the way of writing A LOT, so I was really looking forward to spending some time with my world and my characters.

It has been great. No pressure, no structure, no 'must get this done then I can write', getting in my way. I've had the space and time and I have used it.

Predominantly, I have been planning and re-reading book one and two. (yes I have a complete draft of both now). They have been with me everywhere I have gone, by the pool, in the minibus on the road trip, in the rainforest. That world has been with me, to the point where I've probably been an immense bore because I can't help but talk about it, about the lore that is developing all of the time, about revelations I have had.

Last night was a break through moment for me but that was not how it started.

I did something, where I am sure many procrastinators (or explorers of side-quests) will empathise with me. I had been planning all day in my book, to the point where the pen ran out of ink. I had my computer at the ready. I was alone and I had my plan, right there. Then...nothing. Inspiration, gone!

Perhaps it was the pressure. Perhaps I was tired, or had consumed too many cocktails for my brain to function or, perhaps it was something else.

There was a fear there, under it all. What if all this planning, all these ideas weren't actually all that good? They felt big and amazing in my head all day and there was a part of me that wanted to just live in the dream of it that longer.

I realised there is a transition we have to make as writers and that is the one that ultimately results in our death. Have you heard of Roland Barthes? (I've cited an online copy if you're interested) I read it years ago at university and it hit me then and has remained annoyingly close ever since, especially now I write. He explores, in his essay, this very concept of where the words transition from Author to Reader. The idea being: 'the birth of the reader must be ransomed by the death of the Author' (Barthes, 1967 translation). Basically, once I turn this lovely world of mine into words, I am sharing it with everyone else, to translate, imagine and care about in their own way, making me 'the Author', superfluous and conceptually dead.

I know, morbid. But it hits, and it hits harder in that moment when you care so much, when you selfishly want to keep it for yourself because it is yours.

That was my revelation and I'm not sure it was one I was particularly happy with when I'd spent days dreaming and planning. So, what do you do in that situation?

I accused myself of procrastinating and being overly sensitive and too inclined to philosophise, when writing was the dream I kept pronouncing to myself and every poor soul around me. I gave myself a 10 minute timer and opened a word document.

Slight, segway: is it just me or is there something easier about writing in a word document over scrivener? Perhaps it's what I'm used to.

Anyway, I did it. I wrote that all important first scene about the Soul Realm. (That is what I am currently working with, it will likely change.)

It felt like magic. Once I started the words just flowed beneath my fingers and I was being imaginative with it all, linking to previous themes, feeling the characters' voices and reactions materialising before me, speaking to me.

Then 'thump thump' arrived.

I have always been a fan of onomatopoeia but this one just felt right in this particular circumstance. I was feeling what my character was feeling. She was missing someone and so was I. It was that experience, that moment when you fall into your character and you live it. It's an experience like no other. It was an experience that told me, death of the author be damned! I write because it makes me feel like this and that is something I will never give up, not for anything.

I know I will have to face reviews, I will have to face criticism. I will have to face people who think they're smarter than me and think they can write my story better than me. Fine, you do what you do and I will continue to sit here, with my laptop enjoying that moment when the truth of my imagination materialises on the page.

https://writing.upenn.edu/~taransky/Barthes.pdf (accessed 03.05.2026)