Wonderful word: procrastinap. My son defined it for me as the ability to delay working on something by taking a strategic nap, or, in my case, indulging in something else … anything else, except what you are supposed to be doing.

In my case, the timely reminder was that my father asked me to sign a paperback copy of my book for him. My son was looking at the flyleaf and commented that the next book was due out in October 2016. That would be Beta, the story of the Negrescu Cwn Annwn Pack Betas and how they find their own Mates. There is a lot more to the story that that, but as the saying goes, buy the book to find out.

Procastinapping then. I have actually set myself the target date of end of August for Beta to be published. The joys of self-publishing. Why? My niece in Australia has finished reading both Bound and Alpha, and she wants more. So, at her instigation, I am trying to produce Beta a bit sooner. But, I need to translate it from the 1st person narrative in which it was written into 3rd person deep point of view (POV). That is not a quick process. I have done around 50,000 words of a 150,000 rough draft, but that still leaves me with 100,000 words to go. And that will just be the first draft of the 3rd person deep POV version.

Then the work starts. Leave it at around 150,000 words, or try to reduce it down to 120,000 or so, about the length of the other two books. More words means higher production costs for the paperback version. Decisions, decisions. So what is my solution? Out and out procrastination.

I was telling myself that it was all for a good cause. I was working on some of the later manuscripts: Ddraig, Anatarchi and the current work-in-progress, Cythraul. So it was good, it was all related. But it is not Beta. Any writer will tell you, this is a common problem. Not quite writer’s block, but still the same effect. The book on which I need to work is the one I am avoiding. I need to ‘get back in touch’ with the main character. That’s the problem. Once I am in the zone, when I can hear Bran’s deep voice echoing in my mind, the warmth, the feeling of ‘cwtch’ that he epitomises, then it will start to flow again. I will hear the music in his voice, the emotion, the love that he holds for those dear to him, coupled with the rage if anyone thinks to harm those dear to him.

Picture me smiling … That’s better. I can ‘feel’ Bran in my mind now. So, my friend, shall we talk further?