We all dream of having wings and perhaps the ability to fly,
but when a man’s wings take him to the top of the world
he has no further to go and begins to look down.
He looks down on less trivial things and they begin to appeal
more so than his abilities to build new worlds
as he feels he loses interest in conquering new challenges.

Perhaps this can relate to more than just myself. I frustrate myself as a writer, I’ll be honest with you. Without sounding full of myself I know I have undoubted talent and an ability to find inspiration in hard to reach places and make something special out of ordinary fragments of kindling. What frustrates me is maybe a ridiculous idea of desire to achieve. My competitiveness and desire, whilst good for a writer to have, often leave me losing faith with myself temporarily and wanting constant success. Success is something I’ve attained, and whilst I tell myself it has dwindled deliberately as I take my time with projects and leave myself without stress, it can’t be denied I have achieved little in the last year.

So, as a man stands at the top of his conquered mountain he has options: Climb back down and start to climb another or sit on his pedestal and milk it for all it’s worth. I regularly find myself somewhere in between these two options and that in its essence is what is frustrating. I’m hoping readers can relate to this as I have reached this conclusion myself after a year or so going between the two ‘options’. Ideas come to me regularly and often I have faith in them, but shelf them. Sometimes this is to return to the ‘massive project’ when I have the discipline, time and fully-formulated plans and admitting this makes me embarrassed as I know I have all of these (perhaps the latter less so, but this develops as you work, right?). Perhaps the truth is that I simply don’t push myself to give these ideas a good go. Lets face it- if I have an idea that could change the face of literature for ever I wouldn’t just let it sit in the back of my mind for a couple of years would I?

It’s now almost 5 years since I got an idea for a novel, one I went with strongly and created fragments of for a successful University portfolio only to ‘shelf’ as I developed my talents for poetry and short fiction. Once Tears From Abaddon was released I had my study walls covered in post-its as fragments, ideas and notes for the novel- keenly anticipating its completion and the next success in my life. A few months down the line and I hadn’t bothered making a go of it but not to worry my idea developed into something spectacular and I spent days planning something I knew could be special. That was last New Year. Don’t get me wrong, over the last year I’ve continued to develop the idea further (I now feel it really really really has legs!!) and discuss it with intention to carry it out, but the point remains I haven’t. And that won’t do.

Blueprints is coming along nicely because I did the right thing in allowing myself pressure-less time to carry out the project but failed to realise I need to be putting stuff (mainly myself) out there all of the time. I plan to change that in 2015 and not be content letting my reputation go before me. It’s time for the prince to become king or stop bothering.

If you’ve made it this far congratulations!! Sorry to have taken so much of your time but I hope you can take away a message. We as writers, or in fact we as human beings in any career, must keep finding challenges to conquer. It’s about what you did lately whilst you’re alive and I want everyone to keep pushing themselves to be the best, otherwise someone will take your place. Get out there today and find a new chapter to write, a new beginning to commence and a new mountain to climb.