It’s been six months since I mouthed off about grand plans and, what a surprise, all I have is half a page of scribbled lines. Quite literally. That is all there is of the novel that, according to my writing schedule, should have reached sixty eight thousand words today.Neither my personal life nor my projects have quite gone to plan. My purposefully empty calendar did not result in productivity and relaxation, but lethargy and depression. Somehow I seemed to achieve more in those snatched moments.
Last week I had one of those five a.m. epiphanies re my novel’s abortive start: I realised I was writing the wrong book. More details forthcoming in a subsequent post; for now, I’ll stick to the real-life implications.
This country! It’s the miserable weather, the prejudice I face by being a minority, and the language barrier – that’s the problem. Language, especially in my chosen fields of writing and the performing arts, is what’s holding me back. Whatever I do, because it’s in English, will only ever have a limited audience and restricted success in Finland. I’d have done so much better had I stayed in England.
Or would I? Yes, there’s a limited audience for my work here, but at the same time there’s also a limited artist base. I’ve enjoyed a cosy niche market; let’s even call it a healthy lack of competition. My special minority status may even have opened up opportunities I never would have had ‘at home’, even on the am dram circuit.
Now, as I contemplate my return to London, I find myself faced with a disturbing question: what if my audience there turns out to be just as limited? Am dram panto at the church hall. Will I discover that once I can no longer blame ‘This country!’, I will have to face up to my own mediocrity?
