Keep Buggering On

There is nothing wrong with New Year Resolutions apart from the fact that they are a complete waste of time. Perhaps the only reason they have any currency at all is that they make us feel vaguely positive while we mire ourselves in chocolate, booze and carbs over the Xmas season, lolling on our own flesh in front of some mindless TV re-heat starting Celebs We Are Sick Of. Somewhere, up the road ahead, there is a better person: thin, teetotal and goal-driven.

Which is why I am writing this on December 21st, not January 1st. Make a fetish of the New You, and it's harder to carry on, the Old You having had so much more experience.  Don't try and be perfect; save your energy for writing. Rubbish people do write good books. (Arguably, all good books are written by rubbish people.)

Getting started is essential, as I mentioned in the last post, as is the ability to moderate your expectations (your first words will be shit, as Hemingway promised). But one of the unsung skills of any writer in the war against atrophy is the ability to Keep Buggering On, in the words of Winston Churchill.

I'll be returning to this theme next year, as part of the Edited Highlights of my book 'How to be a Writer'. But just a few thoughts on this now. Keeping Buggering On is not dramatic, does not make for  an exciting biopic and does not involve a. throwing your typewriter out of the window or b. shooting anyone. It does involve working a lot, being patient, listening to feedback that you don't like the sound of and being slightly nice to yourself.

Keep Buggering On when you are writing and you will write the best possible book. Keep Buggering On when the best possible book needs a publisher and you stand the best possible chance of finding one. On any day of the year. Of which, more later.