Mary Kelaher tells a gritty story about life in the cast of a family's shadow.


Mary Kelaher

You're over the first hurdle as a writer and you're finally writing consistently. Now what?

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Girl in a field of grass

Monday, October 02, 2006

Zone out

I’ve sort of been having a “I don’t know if I can write this book” kind of a week. I’ve been typing up my notes… sporadically… but most of the time of been in denial about the amount of work I still need to do.

It’s really strange. Whenever I’m doing projects, I get to these points where everything is going well. I’m following a plan that I’ve made and everything is humming along and then I hit a wall. All of a sudden I just stop. And I can’t seem to get started again.

I don’t think it’s writers block because I still have ideas and if I do sit down to write I don’t have any problems coming up with anything. I just seem to go into a space where I totally zone out. I seem to turn into a zombie and I can’t get off the couch and I don’t want to talk to anybody. It’s like I get sucked inside my head and get totally lost in my thoughts. Which are all about why I won’t succeed at this the task.


I didn’t realize I was in this space until this morning. While I have been doing some work, the days have been mostly sliding by without me doing anything. When I checked this blog today. I was surprised I hadn’t written anything for a week. Here that is.

I think it’s been a lot easier to fool myself this week because I’ve spent a bit of time getting ready for my trip. Particularly over the weekend. And I have been collating all my work. But these really are diversions from the truth. I’ve been a slack arse when it comes to my novel.

When I get like this I always go back to the point where I thought that maybe I might be able to write. And this was the first year I did fiction and script writing at University when I was in my mid thirties. I got a distinction for my first and second efforts at fiction and a high distinction plus for my first script. I had never written either before. Nor had even wanted to.

Initially, I kept the assignments because I remember being beyond shocked that I didn’t fail. Now I keep them for days like this so I can pull them out as a reminder that just because you have never done something before it doesn’t mean you can’t do it regardless of your age.