COMING UP FOR AIR; 2 MONTHS IN, JUST 3 MORE TO GO

So it’s 01:02 am. No, it’s not like I haven’t been to bed yet, I have, I’ve just woken up and since I wasn’t doing anything more productive than tossing and turning, I decided to get out of bed and get to work.  I’ll probably crash and burn later this afternoon but, luckily, it’s the seventh day so I don’t have any meetings or other pressing engagements that will require my full and undivided attention.

This has been my life for the past 2 months sine the reboot of the Coming up For Air project and if I were to tell you that it had not taken over my life, I’d sure as hell be lying.

I think of nothing else morning, noon and literally night.  I’ve been passing out around 21:30 most evenings and rising at around 04:30 every day where I’ve put in pages until around 09:00 and then got on with the rest of my day, then it’s been rinse and repeat.

The result of this surreal body clock cycle is that I’m on track to the first milestone; have the first draft of COMING UP FOR AIR ready for the Reader’s Group deadline of September 2014. There are currently 10 people in the group who will have just under a month to read the estimated 401 pages of manuscript before meeting with me to deliver their verdict at the end of October 2014. I’ll then use this feedback to work on the second draft before this is submitted to a book editor review/edit/revision.

So far, this manuscript has, without a doubt, been a truly emotional roller coaster ride not just through the life highs and lows of the relationships of many but also my own.  It’s been a voyage through a past I didn’t even remember existed and feelings I had clearly attempted to bury but, thanks to a raindrop of one story has caused a flood of memories to rise to the surface.

If Coming Up for Air  isn’t missing something that is drama! There’s plenty in this book to rival even some of the best soap operas but it’s much more than that.  It’s a journey. A roller coaster ride through the true story of us whilst stopping off to meet and share the true stories of  some really interesting people. People who, like us, have endured hardship but have survived it.

So before this metaphorical (or should that be meteoric) ride is safe enough for the general public to board I’ve been going through some test runs and I can tell you that it’s been a true eye opener that has seen me deal with love, exes, suppressed demons, sympathy, empathy, anger, frustration, sorrow and discontent, to name a few!

And the test journey is far from ready. It’s currently just over 50% ready which means I’m ahead of  the projected plan that would see me at just 30%. However, I’ve had to cut back on my social engagements since,  if you’ll indulge yet another metaphor, I now find myself on a very long road, in the distance I can see black, low hanging, cumulus nimbus clouds laden with a cargo of anguish, introspection and hope, not only for my own future but for that of all of those people who have collaborated on this project so far that they may have found or will find contentment in their lives.

I’m feeling somewhat exhausted but exhilarated. For a while there, as I edited the second draft of UNSPEAKABLE I wondered if I had lost my ability to write effectively. I realise now that it wasn’t the subject matter or me, it just was just the wrong time to be revising fiction and the right time to revisiting the facts of the lives of others and my own in the hope that by committing them to paper they may help others  is similar circumstances to understand that, although it may not often seem like it, but nobody’s life is perfect.

I may be feeling somewhat bemused by my irregular sleeping pattern and this post, written in the dead of night, may well read as if it were written by someone one hallucinogenics but  I would like to say that I’m truly humbled by and appreciative  of the interest everybody has shown in this project. It has been wonderful interacting with some of you throughout this process and I’m so looking forward to you all getting to finally read the final product.

Thanks for taking this journey with me and I promise that normal service on this blog will resume once the more pressing matter of a deadline has been dealt with.

Until then, have a wonderful (and sleep filled) Sunday.

Remember, you can follow the journey to book publication on the Facebook you can visit and like it here https://www.facebook.com/comingupforairbyTM.