The Problem with calling oneself a writer when one never writes anything - by Pauline Rendall.

I’ve just realised that the sci-fi and fantasy writer George RR Martin and I have a lot in common. No, it isn’t talent, I’ll give him that one. It’s that we both have a large body of unfinished work and we’re both arch procrastinators.

Of course, George’s form of procrastination involves several lucrative deals with HBO, and a couple of spin-off books (including a coffee table one). But he still isn’t anywhere near finishing his magnum opus, A Song of Ice and Fire. Whereas I only have five unfinished novels (it might be six), and my form of procrastination isn’t lucrative at all, but involves baking, gardening, reading recipes and complaining about not getting anything done. And if I hadn’t embarked on a messy rewrite of two of said novels so that they’re now more problematic than before, I might have beaten him to it.

But seriously, I always used to claim that there was no such thing as writers’ block, that the answer was just to buckle down and get on with it. Well I’d eat my words, if I had any to spare.

Now, research. Boy, I love research. I even went to Prague twice to work out how to exfiltrate a defector. And first lines? I’ve got some snappy first lines. It’s what comes next that’s the problem.

So what’s to be done? Answers on a postcard, please.