This is the second part of my short series on lessons I’ve learnt from climbing, and how they relate to writing. For the first part (a brief introduction), click here.

This time, I want to consider progress. While I enjoy both climbing and writing as activities in themselves, I also want to improve‌—‌climb harder problems, master new techniques, write increasingly engaging stories, learn how use words and punctuation more effectively, and so on.

There’s a notion that doing an activity regularly leads to progress, and this is true. We also tend to assume that this progress will be a reflection of the hours spent on that activity‌—‌work for a certain length of time, and reap a relative amount of progress.

But this isn’t always the case. In my climbing I’ve had months when I haven’t seen much progress, when I feel like I’ve plateaued. There are weeks when I slip back, when for no clear reason I simply can’t climb as well as I did previously. There are times when I put in the hours and I can’t see any tangible benefit.

Then there are times when things seem to fall into place, and I suddenly find my climbing improving faster than I expected.

Progress isn’t a straight line. It’s closer to a series of peaks and troughs, or steps. The general trajectory is upward, but along the way there are those plateaus and dips.

Disregarding (for the moment) the notion of ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’, I think this comes down to something similar to ‘levelling up’ in video games. As I work on trickier problems or new techniques, every fresh attempt involves a tiny amount of learning‌—‌my mind figuring out what to do, my body accustoming itself to different movements. These tiny micro-steps don’t initially show themselves, but they have a cumulative effect. Eventually, my mind and body figure out the particular move or technique, and I find success. This has knock-on effects when I attempt other, similar routes, and after the ‘plateau’ of those invisible micro-steps I suddenly jump up.

I’ll give you an example from another activity. Back when I worked in outdoor activity centres I got into kayaking. As I grew more confident I wanted to learn how to roll (using my body and paddle to right myself after a capsize without having to come out of the kayak). I was fortunate in being around others who knew how to do this, and who were willing to help me.

It took ages. For a long while I could understand how to roll a kayak, and knew what my body needed to do, but every time I went over I ended up floundering. It became frustrating when those patient friends repeated their advice, because I already knew it‌—‌it simply didn’t work for me. I couldn’t convince my body to do the necessary movements.

Until I could. All that struggling paid off, and I righted myself. And once I’d rolled once, I could do it again, and again. Yes, I still had times when it didn’t work, but more often than not I was successful. It was only a short while later I managed a hand-roll (a more advanced technique involving righting a capsized kayak without using a paddle).

This type of progress also applies to my writing, although it’s harder to see. But I can give you one example.

In much of my fiction I use close third-person perspective. This means that I’m describing events in the third person (’he opened the door’, ‘she collapsed onto the chair’), but staying close to a particular character‌—‌the scene is experienced through that character’s perspective.

In my older books, especially in early drafts, I used phrases like ‘she saw’ or ‘he noticed’‌—‌‘she saw the dark clouds approaching and felt a twisting in her guts.’ It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s clumsy. If I’m writing in close third, then I’m already describing things from that characters’ perspective‌—‌anything visual I describe is by default something they see, because if they didn’t see it I wouldn’t mention it. So that ‘she saw’ is redundant. Worse, it can be distancing. A better way of phrasing that sentence would be ‘the approaching dark clouds twisted her stomach.’ It’s tighter, and it’s more intimate.

I don’t know when I learnt about this, but even once I understood it I still used ‘she heard’ or ‘he saw’ or other variations. It took many hours (years?) of writing before that lesson had gone from something I ‘knew’ into something I ‘did’. And even now, especially in early drafts, I find those phrases slipping in. But I’m far more likely to spot them in the edit.

So I now understand that progress isn’t a straight line. But what about those times it seems to regress? What about those sessions at the climbing wall when I struggle with what should be easy routes? What about those times when the climbing doesn’t flow like it usually does?

This could be down to tiredness, especially after a hard shift at work. It could be down to illness‌—‌that cold I’ve been ignoring, or some other ache or pain. Maybe that niggling awkwardness in moving my shoulder is more serious than I realise.

Or maybe it’s the temperature or humidity at the climbing wall.

Climbing is as much mental as it is physical, so if I’ve got things on my mind (even if I’m not fully conscious of them), this can have an impact. Those unconscious thoughts distract me, and I can’t effectively concentrate on my climbing.

Or it’s something else. Who knows? As much as I’d like to be totally in control of everything that happens to me, I know there are so many known and unknown variables that there are always going to be ‘good days’ and ‘bad days’.

And I’ve learnt to not only accept this, but also to go with it. If I’m having a ‘bad’ climbing session, I don’t let it frustrate me. Instead, I stick to easier climbs, maybe working on ‘basic’ techniques. Or I take things slower, spend longer watching and talking to others, or extend the coffee break.

I had one of these sessions this week. I felt weaker than normal. A couple of problems involved high foot-placements, and I simply didn’t have the flexibility. I had done similar moves before, but not on this day.

So I did what I could (I still managed enough that I could class the session as a ‘success’). And those problems that I should’ve been able to get up but couldn’t? A large part of climbing is ‘reading the route’‌—‌mentally running through moves hold to hold. So when I come back to these problems next week, I’ll already have that mental preparation done.

It’s similar in writing. There are times when the words flow, when my fingers fly over the keyboard and the pages fill. There are days when the ideas for story improvements fall into place, or where the edits come together just so. And then there are the days when each sentence is a struggle. There are days when my mind too readily wanders, when it’s an effort to focus on the work.

The days of struggle are frustrating. But I can’t get annoyed at them. I have to accept that I’m not in the right frame of mind for writing or editing. Pushing through might get a few words on the page, but is that time well spent?

I usually have multiple ‘projects’ on the go at any one time. At the moment I have this space-opera series as well as the spin-off series. I also have other writing-related activities, such as these posts, or newsletters, or looking at different marketing options. I have back-cover copy to write, or I could revisit existing copy. I have podcasts I listen to. I have various courses I could go through again. I could spend some time trying to better understand advertising, or coming up with ad copy and images. Or maybe it’s time to ‘refill the well’, to read for inspiration, to see how other writers approach their stories.

There is always something I could be doing. So if the words aren’t coming, or if the editing is leaving my mind spinning, then I can turn to something else. It might not feel as if I’m making progress on a particular book, but I’m still working on my writing. And after taking things easier, I’ll feel fresher for my writing session tomorrow.

Sometimes, the most productive thing to do is to take a step back and rest.

So, there are times when that progress plateaus, and there are times when it feels like I’m not only failing to improve but am going backwards. But, overall, I’m improving.

Since starting to push my climbing, I’ve made progress. Two years ago I worked on ‘red’ climbs (the walls I use have different colours for different grades), and by the end of the year could usually manage to complete about half the ‘red’ routes. A year ago I was regularly completing most, if not all, of the ‘reds’, and could occasionally manage problems in the next level, the ‘purples’. This year I’ve set myself the target of regularly completing two-thirds of the ‘purples’, and to complete a few of the ‘yellows’. Half-way through the year, I have managed just over half the ‘purples’ on the last couple of sets, and have managed one ‘yellow’. Okay, that yellow was undoubtedly soft for the grade, but it still counts.

Is my writing progressing?

If I look at ‘books published’ as a benchmark, then no. Last year I brought out the last couple of books in my ShadowTech series, and started work on this new space-opera. But we’re half-way through 2025, and so far only put out a box-set of the complete ShadowTech series, which didn’t involve writing anything new. I have an upcoming Kickstarter for another collection of previously-written stories (if you’re interested, click here). But I haven’t published anything new.

But this series (and the spin-off series) are a step up. I’m focusing on many of the lessons I’ve learnt over the past few years. I’m determined that these books will contain better writing‌—‌more engaging, with stronger character voice in both dialogue and prose. My rate of production might’ve slipped, but that’s because I’m focusing on quality of writing.

It feels like I’ve made several jumps forward recently, and I now need to consolidate that in these new books‌—‌a plateau in progress where I can put those lessons into practice.

That doesn’t mean I’m taking things easy, though. I’m still pushing, still striving to improve. But I’ll go deeper into that next time, when I look at practice in both climbing and writing.

This post is the latest in a series I’m running on Substack, chronicling my work on this new project. If you’d like to read these posts as they appear, please consider subscribing for free.