Last week, I reached a point in City Novel that I had been looking forward to since I started writing it - a twist I had been thinking about and planning for a solid six years. It was as satisfying as you'd hope; this is my primary reason for never "jumping ahead" when writing, even if I'm stuck in a slump and the Good Part feels impossibly out of reach.
I'm not sure if it has been (I am far too tired to count now, at 11.35pm on a Friday after editing a late episode of Sylvpod), but it feels like the longest stretch since I last published a book. I think the effect is compounded by the fact that even if Sylvestus Vol II only came out two years ago or so, I had been writing Sylv for a long time, as three novels in the end front-to-back. I was writing City on and off for half the time I was writing Sylv. Dying Ember was published in 2014 when I'd already started Sylv, so -
Wait.
Each Separate Dying Ember was published nine years ago? Well, dunk.
I guess when you hit your 20s, the years really do start racing by. I hesitate and frown when people ask how old I am now, second-guessing myself - 25? That can't be right. I finished university four years ago? No, that doesn't seem true. We've lived in this house for fourteen months? No, I must be confused.
The best way, I've heard, to not feel like your life is rushing away from you is to fill it with as many new experiences as you can, as much variety as possible. It also keeps the wonder there, stops nostalgia from casting a pallour over the current day to make yesterday seem brighter.
Things are never perfect, but a missing pet is found again, a weekend arrives, a friend is visited, a sunset is watched, an annoyance is forgiven, a moment is savoured, a long-awaited crescendo is written. The wave crashes to shore and slowly withdraws. We ready, once again, to hurl ourselves forward into the new day.
