I've decided to do something I've never before done in my writing life and that's to make the pronouncement that I'm committing to work on a new novel.  

You see, for the last 4 years I've been playing around in what I think of as the "real world" - the world of dressing up to leave the house, having a boss and work colleagues, working on projects and meeting deadlines.  It's been fun and believe me I'm not about to leave that world again anytime soon.  For one thing I kind of enjoy it (particularly the dressing up and having lunch with work colleagues part) and for the second thing I enjoy the MONEY - the sleep at night factor of having plenty of cash for the family needs and quite a bit left over for the family wants (cars, holidays, expensive teenage hobbies... I'm sure you get it).  

During that time I haven't completely neglected my writing of course.  During the first year I edited my second published novel - although, to be honest, that was probably less writing and more polishing up what was already there.

Then there is what I like to think of as the "on-hold" first novel of a young adult trilogy that I wrote during my second and third year of "real work".  That one was sent out to publishers around the world by three excited agents only to be slowly, but surely, rejected in one way or another, for one reason or another, by said publishers.  And at this point, while I believe that's a really, really promising story with potentially a fantastic future if handled properly, I just don't have the heart to give it the work I know it needs (rejection will do that to you of course). 

On top of that, there are the begun and "resting" carcasses of a novel or three floating around in the recesses of my computer all of which have had more or less time and effort devoted to them over the last four years.  

So it's not that I haven't been busy on the writing front (hard as it's been to find the time, particularly over the last 12 months or so), but what I have lacked is a real sense of commitment.

You see I know how bloody hard writing a novel is.  

I have said before there are only two really great times in the novel-writing process.  The first is when you have the IDEA - an idea so fabulous that you feel it can sustain you for years of work - and the second (which sometimes, but not always is almost at the end) when you realise this horrible monolith of written and re-written sludge is going to actually WORK.  That you have managed, miraculously, to have moulded it into a form that resembles a story, which someone, somewhere might actually want to read.  (As an aside some of the writing can at times be quite nice as well - but writing a satisfying scene or two is very different to writing a novel).

So I have decided - in between full time work, a husband who also works full time and commutes for four hours each day, teenage children who do EVERYTHING and have to be driven EVERYWHERE - I am going to commit to a new novel.

WHY???????  That voice is screaming in my head as well.

Because I have to, and because this novel is based on a really, really great idea.  It's the story of the convoluted, fascinating life of my great, great grandmother, who shouldn't have had the life she did, shouldn't have married the man she married and probably shouldn't have even survived her first two years.  It's the story of a woman whose life, if it had turned out as it was supposed to, would mean I wouldn't be typing these words because none of my immediate or extended family would exist.  

That why I've made the decision and am publicly making the pronouncement that I'm about to find some extra time in my life (even if it means not sleeping) and re-enter the unreal world of my writing by committing to the blood, sweat, tears, edge of madness (and sometimes exhilaration) that writing a new novel requires...