This morning my alarm went of at 5.45 a.m., and I crawled out of bed to take Daisy to dog training. This is Daisy:

She is very bouncy, and does not have a brain to bless herself with. I love her with my entire heart.

Five weeks ago, Daisy knew “sit” and that was it. And she was never very good at it. Now she knows how to sit, how to stay, how to drop (at least most of the time!) and how to walk to heel without getting distracted by, well, everything in the whole world. She’s a very different dog to the one who had that first lesson. And how did we get there? Practice, practice, and more practice.

So it’s a lot like writing a novel, actually. You know in theory how to do all the steps, you just have to practice them all and get them to go together. When I’m writing a book I often start off with an idea for a character–this happens more usually than an idea for a plot, for me–and then I have to build up everything else around them. And sometimes layering in all those other characters that a story needs, plus the plot, feels a lot like trying to get an idiot Labrador to walk up and down without darting in front of you and tripping you with the leash.

It’s practice, practice, practice. And then it’s rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. It’s hard going, and sometimes, when you’re in the middle of it, you’re so frustrated that you can’t see the progress you’ve made. Sometimes a family member you haven’t seen in a week will come over and say “Wow, Daisy’s come a long way!”, and sometimes you need to take a break from your novel and come back to it and see it with fresh eyes.

Before I went to Amsterdam for the amazing Euro Pride Con, I sent away a WIP to a publisher who was asking for them. I think it was about 20k words. Then, a day or so after I got back, I had an email asking for a full. Except, of course, I didn’t have a full. But I could write one. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past month and a half: writing and rewriting, and trying not to lose sight of the fact that I’ve been making progress, when it feels like, once again, the leash is tangled around my ankles and my idiot dog looks as confused about how that happened as I am.

Because even on those days that don’t feel successful, it turns out I’ve always made at least some progress–even if that progress is learning not to make the same mistakes tomorrow!

So today I finally sent off that full, and today Daisy finished her basic training, and tonight we both get to sit down, relax in front of the TV, and feel pretty damn good about how much we’ve both accomplished.

And then tomorrow, it’s back to practice, practice, practice, and write, write, write!