WHEN YOUR MOJO GOES AWOL ....

WHEN YOUR MOJO GOES AWOL …. Life can get in the way of writing sometimes. And the longer you’re away from it, the harder it can be to get back into. A bit like riding a bicycle and swimming……if you haven’t done either for a while then you’ll be a bit wobbly getting back in the saddle and making your first strokes in the deep end. So, what’s to do? I’ve had to ask myself that lately because lots has been going on chez Mitchelmore. And I know agents, editors, and publishers are professionals too, with a living to make. As kind and understanding as most are, they still need their writers to, well, write.

Thank goodness, then, for what I call ‘my Blue Peter’ files. You know, some I made earlier. You don’t want to know how many short story files I have! There are things in there – often three versions of the same story at different lengths while I decide which magazine it would suit best – from way back then, before mobile phones and iPads and Tablets and the like. But when my Mojo goes Awol for a while I need to dig into them. I’ve recently found things in there I started but never finished. And things I finished but never got around to sending out anywhere. Somehow, it’s a lot easier to get back into something previously written, and I can see, almost instantly, where it needs updating or changing in some way – cutting here, adding there. A change of name often works wonders, as does a change of venue. So that’s what I’m doing. It’s served me well in the past. While I waited to see if my publisher, Choc Lit, liked book two of my trilogy (they did – phew!) I dug out something I’d written ages ago when I was in the Romantic Novelists’ Association’s New Writers’ Scheme. There were a few glaring timing errors that, coming back to it, jumped out and hit me between the eyes. So I sorted those. I realised one character needed developing a bit more deeply, so I did that. A fortnight’s work, unlike the nine months or so it took me to write initially. And then I submitted it to my publisher. The reading panel loved it and now it's out as an e.book. RED IS FOR RUBIES is the title. If it sells well, then there is the whiff of a chance it could go to paperback and I truly hope it does as it’s the novel I’ve enjoyed writing the most – so far! And it is, I think, that hope that is in all writers that their work will be read and enjoyed that keeps us going. So, if you’ll excuse me…..I’ve just thought of something – there’s a serial I had published a while back which, with a bit of tweaking here and there, and another 5000 words or so, I could turn into a novella – novella being the buzzword of the moment in the writing world. And when I’ve done that – with luck – life will be less frantic around here and I might be able to start something new. I’d be interested to know how other writers get their Mojo back ….

Linda Mitchelmore