You might recognise the blog title as a Bon Jovi song. I will add the playlist at the end, it’s one I made for my birthday last year. I have a feeling it’ll come in handy this December as well. 🙂

So, anywho, writing.
Do you think I can finish book 4 in 11 weeks? I’m probably a quarter in … and it’s taken all year to get to that point. Talk about frustrating.
Once upon a time I would’ve said without hesitation, “of course, no problem, 11 weeks is heaps of time.”
That’s not true anymore. Now it takes effort to get into the zone and major effort to stay there. I was trying to work out what had changed. I can’t say it’s the bookshop because that’s been a thing since 2015 but it did cause upheaval for me as a writer. It took quite a while for me to be able to write effectively again and find my groove.
There are a few external influences causing havoc at the moment …
… but I think the biggest thing is being on migraine preventative medication. It makes me tired and it takes longer to do things mentally, especially when the dosage goes up. I don’t want it to increase again despite having been knocked around at the end of last week by three-day migraine for the first time in a long time. Every increase slows my brain and halts my creativity while I wait for things to settle so I can get back to being me.
It’s a trade-off which is becoming unacceptable. I no longer get auras like I used to. No numb face, no holes in my vision, no tingling in my arm, or flashing lights. That’s great because I’ve always had a lot of “aura only” migraines and they’re really disturbing, but, I don’t get any warning now. That can be a problem.
Aren’t brains fun?
On Friday night and Saturday morning, I struggled with depth perception, which is common for me during and after a migraine. I broke a mug because I missed the bench (my fav bright yellow mug). I hit the spout on a kitchen tap with my finger so many times, trying to turn the tap on, that I broke my nail. (Disaster! It broke because I kept hitting it and it bent backwards. Yeah, that stings a bit.) I couldn’t pick things up because I kept missing them – took ages to get the dishes done. And forget about trying to make a cup of tea, half-full looked full to me. Yeah, it was fun trying to put fuel in the lawnmower.
Today is a writing day.
I’m struggling to get into the story, again. It’s not that I don’t want to because I love these characters and this story. It’s just a brain thing. It’s murky in there. Makes it hard to see the scenes I’m trying to write.

Last night Chrissy and I were talking about reading and how we absorb books. When we read, we’re in the story, it’s everywhere. They’re not words on a page they’re scenes that we absorb. It’s a living breathing story.
I don’t know if everyone reads like that. But we do.
I can read every word but if I do that I lose the story. I see the words instead of the pictures they create.
Fascinating isn’t it?
Absorbing the book isn’t just how I read, it’s how I write. I’m immersed in the story, I have to be, or I can’t describe what I see. My stories are always a video in my mind. The scenes are alive. That’s how I tell the story by describing what I see and feel.
That’s how storytelling works, for me.
So if something messes with my brain it messes up my ability to immerse myself in the story.
For the rest of the day, I’m going to try and dive into [Whiskey Tango Foxtrot] headfirst!

Before I go, [Veronica Tracey] Spy/PI Volume 1, is now on KU.
Weirdly it doesn’t seem to be available in KU via the USA. I don’t know why. I don’t have the brain power to work out wtf Amazon is doing this time!