Kris Ashton

About this time last year I made a flying start on a new horror novel and never looked back. It proved to be among the most rewarding creative projects of my life; for the most part it was a daily joy rather than a daily grind. It ran to 104,000 words in its first draft and I finished it in three and a half months, sometimes spooling out 3000 or 4000 words a day – a personal best. Once I’d completed it, I moved on to a new short story that had been pestering me and used my momentum to bash that out in pretty close to record time as well.

Then, all at once, everything ground to a stop. It was as though someone had thrown a handful of sand in my creative gears. New ideas were few. When one did come, I would make a faltering start and then give up. I just didn’t have the necessary drive or desire, a first for me in 30 years of writing fiction. I’m not a neurotic or self-doubting person, so this was as close as I’d ever come to an existential crisis. If I wasn’t writing… who was I?

Rather than put pressure on myself to perform, I chose to let it go. I still had a creative outlet in my day job as a travel writer and motoring journalist. Less time spent at a keyboard meant more time to spend with my kids. I could also channel any residual energy into planning house renovations with my wife. These were all worthwhile substitutes. And yet…

And yet, I didn’t want to give up being a writer. Fearing the creative centre in my brain had short circuited and burnt out forever brought deep sorrow. So I did the only thing I could think of: I began rewriting and editing existing stories instead.

Many I hadn’t revisited in months or even years and, with all new composition purged from my head, I could see how much work they required. It helped, as well, that Scare Street evinced real interest in my stories – editorial validation is an excellent motivator. I went from one of my leanest publishing years in 2019 (one paid essay and one short story sold to a non-paying market) to one of my most prolific in 2020 (three paid short stories, one paid novella, one paid essay, two self-published books).

I’m pleased to report that after six months offline, my brain’s creative centre appears to be up and running again. I’ve made headway on a new short story that shows a lot of promise. I’m shopping around a number of stories that I revised and improved during my sabbatical from fresh copy. And, as traumatic as the past six months have been at times, the experience proved salutary – a reminder that the authorial life isn’t only about moving the words across the screen, but a dozen other equally important components that make up the writing/editing/publishing process.