Five weeks and counting

Five weeks ago I submitted a manuscript for an assessment. For the first few weeks afterwards, I worked feverishly on something new, wanting to get as much down as I could before receiving the assessment.

Now, the fever has died, and I am waiting.

I am still dragging myself to my 500 words a day, but the spark has gone, replaced by the most fun questions ever, such as

• what if the assessment says, you’re wasting your time
• what if the assessment says, you’re brilliant, this will be published immediately, after which I’ll be plunged into writer’s block and will never finish anything ever again
• what if the assessment says, meh, kind of, maybe try re-writing in past tense and third person
• what if the manuscript was so underwhelming she has actually forgotten about it

That fun thing I talked about really hasn’t taken off.

On the plus side, in five weeks I’ve written 27,000 new words, read 7 books, been to Ireland, started jogging, discovered Netflix, and volunteered at Oxfam on Sunday afternoons, while working full-time.

Perhaps the fever is just being distributed.

Perhaps this post is a magical jinx and the manuscript is on its way to my inbox right now!