I’ve been in a slump lately. I haven’t written, read, or posted on TikTok in what feels like forever. I hit this moment where I genuinely thought, What’s the point? When I spend hours creating videos that only two hundred people see, or pour myself into writing a book that barely anyone picks up, it’s hard not to feel defeated. All that time, all that money spent releasing Lost Sky – and yes, the people who have read it loved it. The handful of readers who gave it a chance left glowing five‑star reviews. But when no new readers seem willing to take that chance, it’s difficult not to wonder why I’m doing any of this.
I’m halfway through editing the 80,000‑word first draft of my next book, yet I haven’t touched it in ages. So I booked a week away – a tiny village in the middle of nowhere in South Wales, a quiet place with views of the Severn Bridge right from the garden. I sat outside and watched the cars cross, imagining the people inside them, inventing their lives, their destinations, their secrets. I went searching for motivation, for inspiration, for something to shake me awake again.
I took The Winners by Fredrik Backman with me, another thing I’d been putting off. The final book in the Beartown trilogy. I’d been intimidated by its 670 pages, even though Backman is my favourite author and I adored the first two books. It’s only the third book I’ve managed to read this year; releasing Lost Sky and spending all my free time marketing it, swallowed everything else.
But something shifted during that week away. Reading, daydreaming, making up stories about strangers on the bridge – it helped me find my focus again. I loved The Winners, just like I knew I would. And now I’ve started this journal, hoping it will help the writing juices flow again.
I’m going to re‑release the Seas the Day trilogy and There’s Something in the Attic for younger readers. I want to rewrite Jinx as a YA novel. And I’m ready to continue working on Raised in the Dark – the story of a girl called Brie who accidentally discovers she’s adopted on her sixteenth birthday, and when she goes searching for answers, learns her biological father is a vampire.
Maybe this is the point: to keep going, even when it feels like no one is watching. To write because I love it. To create because it matters to me. And maybe that’s enough to start again.
