Plan

Way back when the internet was a couple of super computers connected by a tin-can telephone, I remember wondering how in the hell writers properly researched for their novels. I was young and self-conscious and couldn’t, not for one moment, envisage calling someone up cold and asking them for a chat in the name of ‘research’. Just the thought of it made my toes curl up and fall off.

Things have come a long way. I no longer sit with a huge, beaten Thesaurus by the side of my crap old typewriter for I can now locate that word I can’t quite grasp at the touch of a button. I can write about surgical procedures with (some) confidence thanks to amazing online tutoring sites and write in detail about places I have never seen. I, quite literally, have the world at my fingertips. Writing fiction has never been easier.

But with every silver lining there’s that big fuck-off cloud, too. I still can’t believe how many other would-be writers are out there. I spent ten years thinking that I was a complete freak and not for one moment thought that I was simply one of thousands – maybe even millions. I now realise that I’m not as unique as I’d thought and instead of feeling relieved that I’m not alone, all it does is make me frustrated. I don’t need more competition. Writing is the only thing that I know I do well and the thought of pitting myself against those thousands of others turns me green. But if I don’t do something about it, a would-be writer is all I’ll ever fucking be. No-one’s going to discover my worlds and fall in love with my characters if they never escape the prison of my bloody flashpen.

So. A plan.

For the first time in my life, I’m going to enter a writing competition. The prize – your novel published and a literary agent at your side – is so beyond my reach it’s laughable, so it’s not that that I’m striving for. If nothing else comes of it, it’ll be me finding the strength to make a submission to a Real! Life! Agent! for my chosen genre. It’ll mean that I’ll have to be ruthless with my own work and look at my output more critically. A few weeks preparation for a competition that I don’t have a hope of winning will still yield more careful consideration of my own work than I’ve done in years. That in itself is a prize. So that is what I will do.