Death Sentence

Getting this far hasn’t been easy.

My intention of switching off all emotion and letting the words flow unstinted has proved harder than I expected. There is nothing wrong with my memory, but my subconscious tries to manipulate the images that emerge when I add the words. The timing appears slightly better, the dialogue more polished or the mood lighter.

However, this kind of fraud won’t go unpunished. I feel there is someone in the room with me, hiding in the shadows. A critic looking over my shoulder, constantly aware of the errors I make and upsetting my concentration every time I’m disloyal to the project. Then my body fills with dread, a nervousness that doesn’t cease until I go back and rewrite the chapters where I was insincere, passages where I omitted details or toned down my behaviour.

It’s not until I have corrected discrepancies and lies that I’m permitted to carry on, even more naked now and in the certain knowledge that it can only get worse.