I made a useful discovery last week, useful to me, maybe to others. I had just finished draft 16 of my WIP and loaded chapter one to start draft 17. I couldn’t face it. I kept asking myself how many more of these things will it take? Jeffery Archer does 18 handwritten drafts of each book. Ten drafts ago I had been thinking along similar lines, although I’m working on a laptop. I left it for the night and the following day reduced the workload to a paragraph. It’s so much better, the writing has become more fluid and I’m finding questions that need to be answered. The thing is, that’s how I used to write before I decided to be a writer. I’m still working on that first chapter, and still doubtful that the book will sell, but my characters are speaking to me again, so who knows, maybe in six months I’ll be able to volunteer at my job and write full time.