The last couple of days have largely been preoccupied with audio editing. The second series of my podcast started up at the beginning of the month, so I’ve had to don my editor’s cap for a few days whilst jazzing up episode two. This isn’t a bad thing, in any sense of the word. If anything, it’s been a delight returning to the world of audio. It’s creative, it puts me in that flow state, and it always makes me laugh when it comes to sprucing up my co-hosts’ and my ramblings.

But of course, with that comes the fact that I’ve not done quite as much writing as I’d hoped. A few paragraphs here and there, but nothing substantial to report.

It’s all fine, of course. Next weekend is my free weekend (at least for the moment. Life may well have other plans, for all I know). There’s no show to edit and no commitments to meet. Aside from a parkrun on Saturday morning, I’m free to focus on writing. Perhaps a couple of days with an extra-large pot of coffee and a Yankee candle burning away will help the ideas flow from my mind and onto the page.

Yet there’s a frustrating distraction that’s been brewing away in my brain over the last few days, a distraction I pray won’t disrupt my intentions between now and Saturday morning. Perhaps it’s nothing. It’s almost certainly inconsequential, yet it still troubles me all the same. You see, during the last few days, I’ve spotted myself daydreaming about another novel that I started working on several years prior. This one is a horror about a disembodied, extraterrestrial entity living in an abandoned hospital in a small, West midlands town. I conjured up this idea following a Stephen King bing a couple of years back. I’ve always had a soft spot for the horror genre. I’ve written a few short stories within this category in the past, and am often please with the outcome of such stories. I figured why not give a feature length story within this realm ago. Whilst I hit pause on this novel some time back, largely due to some turbulence in my personal life, I do intend to finish it someday. I even got fairly close to having it be the featured project that I’d chronicle within this very series. Yet the more I thought about my Synthetic Empires concept, the more excited I got about finishing that one first. The plan was to finish Empire, then move on to the spooky, sci-fi story once that was done and dusted.

Nevertheless here I am, getting excited over a halted work in progress. I keep thinking of the two protagonists; former school friends who set up a paranormal investigation agency after discovering aliens are real. Then there’s the quiet, dead-end, fictional new town; its residents paralysed by fear of the beast they like to deny resides amongst them. So many possibilities, so much potential.

Of course I’m not going to revisit it. Not yet, at least. I’m being as stubborn as a mule on this one. I have to complete Synthetic Empires before I start entertaining any more large-scaled fables. I know if I drop it now, it’ll gather dust for years. By the time I try to return to it, I’ll have forgotten where I was with it all and find it difficult to reengage. I have to finish this one first, no matter how much my brain fights to distract me with future projects.

Be that as it may, the fact I’m thinking of this other endeavor worries me a touch. What if it distracts me from my primary focus? What happens if I start conflating characters and subplots from this other novel? Right now, I just want my head to be getting excited and invested over Quinn, Michelle, and their evolving friendship within the British badlands of tomorrow.

Hopefully, come this weekend, my head will be back on the main prize. I’m not going to let this urge win. It’s just another attempt to procrastinate. I know I don’t have any urgency to complete my second project any time soon. Those ideas will be ready and waiting for me when the time finally comes. I know full well that if I shifted over, in a few weeks’ time, the novelty of writing for another fictional vista will have worn off. My brain will be daydreaming about another unfinished or undeveloped story. Stick with Empires for now; the rest can wait for another day.