I’m in a bit of a quandary over where to take my writing at the moment.

Having decided to stick with pursuing the traditional route for now as far as publishing’s concerned, I have released my third manuscript into the ether for (hopefully) some useful feedback before another round of submissions.

And I guess to be honest if the feedback is not hopeful, then it will give me a mission in terms of either working on a redraft on my own or (and?) searching for other places to submit it.

But for now I am waiting – for the verdict on my latest novel, for the outcomes of a couple of competitions I’ve entered myself into – and it’s making me feel quite antsy.

(Here’s a beautiful picture of the seaside to induce some calm…)

There is – obviously – plenty to fill my days with. Blogging for Connecta Baby Carrier, grant applications for my beloved local lido, continuing along the unschooling journey with Arthur. It’s not writing though – or at least not WRITING writing.

It’s times like this I feel very grateful for my own blog, and even more for the wonderful What I’m Writing community. It gives me focus, support and accountability without which I might not think twice about letting the WRITING writing slip.

But instead I have spent the last couple of days dwelling on a focus for my #whatimwriting post, and in the process have realised that I need to find a focus for my writing itself.

I thought it might be competitions, but it turns out that besides the Mslexia novel competition that I entered recently there’s very little out there for unpublished novelists. Which I suppose makes sense. I’ve found one other to have a go at – and admittedly haven’t got round to it yet – but that’s not going to be all that much of a step forwards.

Because what I really want to be doing is writing – writing something new. I don’t want to make a start on another novel. I don’t have a pressing idea anyway which makes that option highly unlikely – but I feel like I need to make some headway with the first three (or at least one of them) before I get caught up in another. So I am coming back, in stolen moments of potential creativity, to the idea of short stories.

It was supposed to be my project over the summer. But, you know: summer. It didn’t happen.

Now though? I reckon it might be time. And – exploiting that aforementioned accountability – I am determined to have at least the start of something by this time next week.

I cannot wait to get stuck in to writing something – something new!