Yesterday, I thought I would take time out from writing and blogging, giving my mind and fingers a rest – I decided to look at the skyline and explore thoughts and ideas, and try and finally solve an issue in Book 3 that has been hanging over my head for months, the unsolved nature of which was beginning to threaten the publication of the book itself – Put bluntly, I had to solve it or start prepping You Guys for a delay.

Not an easy decision and not a good way to think. Ever. “Solve it NOW” is pressure and so is preparing you for that delay.

Adding its own weight to the issue, I knew that if I had another six months, I wouldn’t be thinking under pressure, so I would likely not have the problem at all. I’d be in writing mode, not pressure mode. Crazy – the problem was caused by pressure and the pressure was the problem. The solution, then, seemed to be release that pressure. Which was just what I had been looking at – hence the pressure!

I’m down to just over four months. I shouldn’t HAVE major gaps in my work at this time. Other issues and tangles had been solved, but this one seemed immovable.

I had pretty well decided to prepare you all for disappointment and delay publishing because, frankly, if it’s not the very best story I can produce and every bit equal to Books 1 and 2, it’s not going out.

So I took the day off, enabling me to get away from my desk and to think in a fresh way about things. That lead me to think about the manuscript issue in a fresh way, too. What if I was looking at the problem all wrong?

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