“Why is it taking me so long to write this f**king book?”

I don’t finish creative projects quickly.  If you read my monthly newsletter, you’ll know that already.  I illustrated this month’s edition with the same picture as I’ve used here, of a crazily colourful painting I’ve been working on since 2014.

(In 2014 I thought I’d create some art for my own exhibition, which I’d call ‘Office Doodles’.  I was still an HR manager at the time, and I never left a meeting without having drawn all kinds of rubbish in my meeting notebook.  I must have thought exhibiting it would inject some meaning into all that lost time.

However, over 10 years later I’m still on that first painting.  The fine art collectors will just have to wait a little while longer for my glittering gallery debut).

(A few ‘Office Doodle’ examples… though these are pretty tame as I’ve got rid of all my pre-2014 notebooks).

I’m also still working on my first novel, over a decade after I finished the first draft.

Doesn’t sound good, does it?

Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace in two years – though he took another four to rewrite the whole thing from scratch.  That’s still less time than it’s taken me to complete a novel that’s roughly 300 pages long, and of questionable quality.  But I don’t see it as time wasted.  I used to, but not anymore.

That’s because I’ve realised two things.  One: nobody is actively expecting my novel, or my painting, so I can finish them when I want.  Two: I’m improving the book and the painting every time I work on them.

Oh, and there’s a third thing: creativity is fun.  It’s supposed to be fun.  I think I forgot that, back in the foaming, anxiety-ridden maelstrom of “I haven’t got time to write today,” or “I’ve run out of red paint so I can’t do anything until I’ve got some,” or “I’m so lazy that I hate myself,” or “when the fuck will I FINISH this!”

Unless you’ve got a deadline and/or someone is paying for the end result, you can be creative just for fun.  That end result will take however long it takes.

That can be a useful thing to remember, when September is packed with “it’s-autumn-so-let’s-get-started-on-something-new”-type advice, yet you’re still wrestling with the old.  It’s easy to feel disheartened if a piece of creative work takes longer than you thought it would, but ask yourself: does it really, honestly matter?  If you’re learning and growing along the way (which you are) your work will be better for it.  So if it does matter, take heart: your next project will probably take less time and be more brilliant.

But if all else fails, remember that truly creative types have a reputation for being flaky procrastinators… so you’re just conforming to type.

(Watch this space for my book launch information and art exhibition programme.  Just try not to fall asleep while you’re doing it).