I quit my job.

Four innocent little words that strung together have the same potency as a Hiroshima shaped nuke aimed straight at my family. I’m pretty sure my mum had heart failure. My wife definitely swallowed her tongue while trying to blink her way through the wide-eyed horror. Even my dad – who’d spent the last eighteen months telling me to quit – had a momentary aneurysm at the news.

No one thought I’d quit.

Hell, I didn’t even think I’d quit.

But on March 5th 2019, I found myself sat at a canteen table, both my managers staring back at me. One of them knew. Maybe it was written in the glint in my eye or the tremor in my hands. Perhaps it’s just that somethings are inevitable. Somethings you can taste like the cut of thunder in the air before it arrives.

I didn’t even open my mouth.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” he said.

I was.

Clutching a piece of paper with a single line of text printed on it, I uttered those fateful words, “I’m handing in my notice.”

Ironic really, that as a writer I’m struggling to capture the emotion I felt in what has to be one of the most momentous points of my life. I’ve worked in local government for eight years. Eight very long years. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with my organisation, more that I personally wasn’t suited to working in a conservative organisation with more than its fair share of bureaucracy. But hey, it taught me things too. Lots.Of.Things…

Things I Did Learn!

• I have a deep seated aversion to authority
• A healthy thirst for subverting any – and all – rules thrust upon me
• I point blank refuse to be anything other than myself at all times
• And while I can toe the line and do diplomacy and small ‘p’ politics, I’d rather stab myself in the eye than swallow anything inappropriate I’ve got to say

The Universe Listens, Be careful What You Say

Sat at the canteen table, eight years of emotions swirled in my chest. I’d wanted to leave more or less from the moment I arrived which was:

416 weeks (2920 days or 70,080 hours) ago. Seventy THOUSAND hours of doing something I didn’t want to.

I guess sometimes you don’t know what you want, to find out, you’ve got to do something you don’t.

I’d spent the entire of 2018 saying 2019 was going to be my year. Without being too philosophical about this, I honestly think the universe listens. If you say something enough – and you’re willing to put the sweaty, frequent tear-gushing, sleepless nights into it – then you will manifest it. Think of it as a self-fulfilling prophecy if you like. Granted when saying it I had no idea 2019 would actually lead me to quit my job. I’d assumed I’d cut hours down and be financially better off. Not once did I think I’d leave. And yet, I blindly stumbled down the path of writing with a singled minded obsession of getting out, of being ‘free’. And here I am. Writing a blog post I never thought I’d write. Trying to capture what an eight year fight for freedom was like.

I should have listened to my friend back in November. When booking a writing retreat to Dubrovnik for June 2019, she said she had a feeling I’d be writing full-time. I laughed in her face, literally. Had she lost her fucking mind? At that point in November, there was no possible way I could write full time. Yet, just three months later, I was sliding that piece of paper across the table. It’s eye-wateringly shocking to me that I can shift my life that fast and that extensively in such a short period of time. November I was staring down an eternal barrel of doom, depression and demoralising slavery. And then, just as suddenly, I wasn’t.

The Intangible Tangible

I still can’t get my head around it. As I write this, I’m sitting in my office – something else I didn’t think I’d have having spent the last five years on the diningroom table – sipping a coffee, the patter of rain splattering the cobbles outside. I still can’t believe I’m here. I don’t know how to adequately convey the inexplicable swell of joy my chest.

Looking back it all seems so close and yet ethereally far away at the same time. Memories are funny like that. So tangible in a wholly transulcent way. Capturing the wrenching pain of the last eight years seems fruitless. But I’m going to try if for no other reason than to encourage someone reading this to take the first step in their journey. Life is too short to be in pain.

The Past

I used to wake up every day knowing I had to spend the majority of my day doing something that made my skin crawl and my heart bleed.

Every day, every email, my chest ached writing anything corporate instead of fantastical. Such a simple task – penning an email, yet it caused me a kind of physical hurt. A searing pain that made me want to scream and cry. I wasn’t doing what my soul wanted nor what my purpose for being alive was.

Out of Body Pain

I’m not being dramatic when I say that some days were like out of body experiences. I could feel myself climb out of my body and sit on the floor beside my office chair. I have these strange memories of metaphysical me on the floor clasping her hands around her knees and rocking, quietly moaning and sobbing and clawing at her face. There were weeks (yes, plural), where I cried every day. Be it in a toilet, or a tree, or a corridor. I wept because I hurt. Because I was frustrated and because there was a thing so beautiful and so pure beating inside me but it was trapped in a cage with bureaucracy and monotonous paper pushing bars.

Each day I tortured myself with continuous clock watching. I counted down the hours and minutes until I could walk out the doors and yet with every tick I knew I’d have to come back the next day. That was the worst bit, knowing there was no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Even now, sat at my desk with freedom in my heart, there’s a pull. A gnawing fear in my gut that someone is going to turn around and say, “Only joking silly girl, off you go back to work.” I know that cold slick of fear when I go to sleep at night will take a while to disappear. I’m okay with that. I’ll use it, turn the fear into motivation and drive to create more, earn more, do more. There’s no way I’m going back to employment, not until my cold, dead body is ash and rot.

Hope is Insidious

If there was one defining trait that represented humanity, hope would be it. But hope is a tricky little bastard. It helps you keep going. Gives you the fuel and drive to keep pushing and fighting for the thing you desire. And all the while it reminds you that you don’t have the thing you want. Like the carrot on the end of the proverbial stick, hope is unreachable because, of course, once you get the thing you want, you no longer need hope. And in the meantime, while it’s driving you forward, the slippery bastard is also pushing you down and cheese grating reminders of what you want all over your consciousness.

This is a horrific photo of myself. And you might wonder why on earth I’d share it. Well, I’m sharing it because it’s the ugly truth and sometimes the truth is needed.

I took this photo the day before my son’s 4th birthday. November 29th, 2017. It was my lowest point, it’s not a pretty selfie, it’s not even pleasant to look at. Everytime I look at it it sends a shiver of fear-laced pain down my spine. I never want to go back there. I never want to be her again.

It was a wake up call. When I looked at the photo I was shocked at the amount of pain etched into my skin, I didn’t even recognize the girl in the photo. So I kept it as a reminder – I had to get out. I had to keep fighting because otherwise, it was going to kill me.

Want to know what it looks like when you choose not to follow your dream? This is it. Take it from me, you have to do what your soul craves. You have to pursue it until you get it. Because the alternative is  mental prison… This is what a cage does to a person.

I was broken.

Completely and utterly cored out until all that was left was a battered shell, empty eyes and an aching heart.

But Still, I Didn’t Quit

And you shouldn’t either.

I could have quit. Believe me. Right there in that moment I wobbled. I wondered if it was all worth it. If the pain of wanting something so much and not being able to reach it was worth the anguish, the hurt and the grind. But what other choice did I have? Quit? Then what? Continue in a life I hated. There was no choice because I couldn’t quit. If I quit, I lost. And even in that broken state, I wasn’t about to be beaten.

So I carried on. This is my message to you.

Keep Fighting

I returned to my laptop night after night. Weary, exhausted and with no light at the end of the tunnel, and I kept writing anyway. I created affirmations and goals, I studied the craft relentlessly, listened to podcasts. Sacrificed more things in order to make more time. I trimmed down what I was doing until I was left with only the tasks and projects I knew would help me leave work. If you’re interested, I’ll write more about my strategy in later posts.

I’d love to tell you that an offer suddenly came through or my books became a roaring success over night. But that shit is for Cinderella and fairytales. This might be a dream come true, but it certainly isn’t a fairytale. Dreams are two parts gritty-sweat-fuelled hard work and one part time.

It was 17 months after that photo before I was in a position to quit.

S.E.V.E.N.T.E.E.N. MONTHS of clawing my way out of a hole. Of gritting my teeth and pushing on anyway. But I made it.

The Luck Myth

And that’s why I don’t believe in luck. Luck is a bullshit myth made up for the lazy and unmotivated. If you’re sitting here reading this thinking she’s so lucky to be free and working from home. Give yourself a slap and wake up sister. Luck doesn’t exist. I’ll tell you what luck is, luck is working two full time jobs, it’s obsession and unwavering belief you can do something even without a shred of proof that it’s possible. It’s working until midnight so many nights on the trot you’ve forgotten what bedtime is. It’s grit. It’s single-mindedness. It’s getting up when you fall down. Hard fucking work is what luck is made of. And trust me, if I’m capable of leaving my job and following my dream, so are you.

Truly. I believe it. You just need to too.

This might be a dream come true, but it certainly isn't a fairytale. Dreams are two parts gritty-sweat-fuelled hard work and one part time. #Amwriting #IARTG #writingcommunity #indieauthor
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The post I Quit My Job – Lessons in Perseverance: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly appeared first on Sacha Black.

I love reading blogs written by other writers, editors, publishers and general creative bods. I particularly love reading blogs on ‘writing’ and how to write better. That’s why in my own blog I like to explore the lessons I’m learning as I progress on my writing journey.

But there’s a snag. In reading all those posts, I got myself caught up in thinking I should be doing something a certain way. Using a character template for example, and then getting caught up in which specific template I should use, whether I should be using one for scenes or settings, having to outline, or not outline, styles of note taking, pantser or a plotter, editing as I go or writing to the end and then editing… the options are endless and I wrapped myself up in a big knotty ball of stress trying to figure out which was the best method of writing to produce the best story. 

What happened was I ended up not doing any writing and just trying a ridiculous number of methods. This is what led me to start the author interview series. I was fascinated obsessed with other writers writing processes. I wanted to learn what their secret trick was. I was hoping for some nugget of inspiration or gem of knowledge that would tell me how I could write that best seller, or actually, and more importantly just finish my own god damn novel!

You know what I discovered…? There is no gem, no nugget and no secret. It doesn’t exist. And you know why? Because only YOU know how you write best.

I was busy interviewing Dylan Hearn on his writing process when I had an epiphany, a real one. It’s been known, and I’m always in the car.  Anyway, this epiphany came out of a discussion on his method for developing characters, without trying to give too much away from his interview, he develops them through edits, not necessarily before sitting down to write the first draft. Commence one of those, really awkward self revealing moments when I was all like:

‘Wait, whaaaat??? You mean you DON’T have to know every single detail about a character before you start writing?’ 

A hundred thousand pennies dropped at once, and all my weary up tight cogs clicked into place. It might seem obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me. I waS convinced I needed to have the perfect character before I started to write.

Apparently, you don’t.

(*$%&@##)

And you know what else? You don’t have to have a bunch of other shit sorted either. You could, if that’s what works best for you. But you don’t have to. YOU DON’T HAVE TO. F*** my actual life!

Why was that so hard for me to understand? I’m a grown adult for goodness sake. I guess I got caught up in trying to work out where I sat on the plotter/pantser line. I always thought I would be on the extreme end of the plotter continuum. But I’m not. I like a good solid outline, with a couple of sentences outlining each chapter, and that’s it. I don’t want anything else. It wasn’t until Dylan told me he edits the characters to perfection during the editing stage that I realised why I had been having such an issue just getting on. I thought I needed to have perfection before I started, but I don’t.

Dylan did something else pretty amazing. It might sound odd, but he gave me the best gift I could of asked for.

He gave me permission to do it my way.

To ignore everyone else, put the advice to the side, and just figure out my own process. It was an odd realisation that I needed someone else to give me permission to do it my own way. I don’t really consider myself a conformist, in fact I revel in breaking the rules. So it was a shock to me that I couldn’t just give myself permission. But I couldn’t, and I suspect I’m not the only one. I guess because writing matters so much to me, I wanted to be sure I was doing it right, and writing the perfect way.

This epiphany leaves me in somewhat of a pickle, because now I don’t really know what my writing process is, I’m back to square one and half way through a book. But that’s ok, there’s nothing better than an adventure into the unknown, and I don’t imagine I will get it perfect on book one anyway.

I want to give you the same gift Dylan gave me….

I’M GIVING YOU PERMISSION

I’M GIVING YOU PERMISSION

Put the advice blogs down, put the writing technique books away, sack the ‘rules’ off and back away from any words of wisdom.

Get messy, get frustrated, get upset, get emotional if you need to, but do it your way, and enjoy working out what that is. I know I’m going to.

***

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The post How To Take Charge And Write Your Own Way appeared first on Sacha Black.

I feel like these writing tips are becoming more like ‘heres a bunch of lessons I learnt from all the mistakes I’ve made’ as opposed to actual tips. But hopefully someone out there appreciates them anyway.

The lesson I learnt this week comes from a place of frustration. I don’t think there is actually anything I can do about it. Let me explain…

When I started writing, I didn’t appreciate that it would affect my reading. And it has. In a big way.

I have shamefully become a snob. I used to be able to muddle my way through anything, even if I didn’t like it, I would persist and find something to like. But now…Now that I am super critical of my own writing, and I am trying to pick up all the intricacies of the super famous or spectacularly fantastic; when I come to read the books of anyone less than exceptional I find myself getting really REALLY annoyed. Take the book I’m reading currently. Uglies, by Scott Westerfield. There is nothing wrong with this book, its fairly infamous, and written reasonably well, obviously well enough to be published and selling books. BUT It’s annoying the shit out of me, for reasons I will tell you all about in another post.

My point is, under normal circumstances I would adore this book, it’s exactly the type of genre I love, it’s YA, fantasy, dystopian and a trilogy or actually more like 5 books or something. BUT, because my stupid brain is trying to absorb all the tricks of the trade, I now find myself deconstructing books, reading line by line for descriptions, techniques, characterisation, POV, scene setting and foreshadowing techniques.

I have lost my ability to read for the sake of reading. For the enjoyment. For the love of a good story.

My dream of being a writer, is utterly ruining my first love – reading.

I’m not sure what the lesson is here – because if you want to be a writer, you need to read.

But if anyone has the answer – Please for the sake of my sanity tell me how to stop this snobbery!

The post Writing Tips #7 don't become a snob appeared first on Sacha Black.

So, this is a motherhood post.

Everybody knows about the terrible twos, how truly awful they are with screaming tantrums and public paddies.

Hideously embarrassing and the phase I suspect most parents dread in young children. BUT SERIOUSLY…. why did no one tell me about the horrific change that happens at ten months? My son is now ten and a half approaching eleven months, and it was like an alien literally took over his body and possessed his previously calm temperament.

Nappy changing is simply an impossibility without an army of spare hands, arms and legs to pin your gremlin of a child in place while you change them. Ok, so distraction occasionally works too, but not as well as it used to! He now likes to pitch an absolute bitch of a screaming fit, when I get him dressed, try and do his teeth, or anything that even remotely changes his current situation.

In spite of the fact I’ve read a million mum blogs, help sites read books and compared notes with a hundred friends, it kind of doesn’t matter what they say or suggest because baby black, is just going to make life difficult his own way! When I find a solution I’ll report back!

The post Forget terrible twos, why didn't anyone tell me about the terrible ten months? appeared first on Sacha Black.