How's It Going?

I’ve had a few people ask me recently how the writing is going and as I haven’t really addressed that question in the last few blog posts, I thought I’d update those of you who are interested enough to still be reading this ;-)

I finished my first (rough!) draft just after Christmas as planned, woohoo!  The pleasure of completing it was massive, let me tell you.  I still grin like a slight loony every time that I remember I’ve managed to get this far with it :-)  There’s still a loooong way to go with editing subsequent drafts and making it in a polished manuscript fit for human consumption, but I am so chuffed to finally be properly on this writing journey!

Like a good girl, I’ve followed all the writer-ly recommendations to put it aside for a couple of weeks so that I come back to the task of redrafting fresher and with a more detached critical eye (allegedly, lol!).  Taking that break has been ridiculously hard though!  I love my characters so much that I wanted to keep on spending time with them and having come this far into a long-held dream, I didn’t want to have to stop.  I’ve practically had to sit on my hands to prevent myself from working on it and thankfully I’ve also managed to distract myself mentally by thinking more seriously about the young adult fiction I’d like to write, with various ideas already emerging, which is very exciting.

Thankfully the break is now over and I can get back to hanging out with Ben, Ned and Miss Bitts, hurray :-)  My first task has been to print out the first draft – all 123 pages of it! – and that’s brought another massive smile to my face :-D  As it’s printed 2 pages to one sheet of paper it looks a bit like a book!!!  I know, I know, I know there’s still weeks and months of work to go until it has any hope of becoming a real book but it’s a mega thrill to see it in that form anyway!

Now the hard work really begins though :-/  So far all I’ve had to do is get my ideas out onto paper, which has been surprisingly easy.  Next, I have to look at serious stuff like rising tension (the story not me!), plot development, character development, appropriate language choices for the age range, etc. etc.

So, *deep breath* and keep watching this space for the peaks and troughs of my writing journey in this next season…

Highs and Lows of 2012

I love to take time at the turn of one year to the next, contemplating what’s happened in the previous 12 months and considering what may come in the sparkly new year!

2012 was a very mixed year.  At the beginning of it, I felt God say to me it would be a year of high highs and low lows and, boy, was it!

The best high was finally writing the first draft of my children’s book – something I’ve wanted to do for so many years.  Even better than the achievement of having got something down on paper though, was the discovery that I LOVE writing, even more than I thought I would. It feels almost magical sometimes how ideas and words can suddenly flow from “nowhere” and being able to create people, worlds and situations is a complete thrill!  Writing gives me so much pleasure that I actually find myself getting tetchy on days I don’t write :-)  There’s nothing I want to do more than write now and so I really hope to discover this year that I’m good enough to get published and be able to do it as a “proper” job!

I probably remember most of the lows better than the other highs though - hopefully not because there were more of them but because I want to learn from them and see some good come out of them.  I’m a silver lining kind of girl :-) plus I know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, even the crappy things!

The biggest low that overshadowed much of the year was depression, which I only recognised finally in May when it got particularly bad.  It was a rubbish time, but I did learn a lot from it.  I have friends with depression and it certainly helped me understand them much better.  I realised how incredibly unhelpful most people’s comments are when you’re depressed – you really have to have been there yourself to have any idea.

I also remember re-reading the account of Katniss’s depression near the end of “Mockingjay” and my understanding of it was so much greater once I’d been there myself.  Previously it had seemed strangely different to the rest of the writing – patchy, scant detail, almost like an out-of-body experience – but that’s exactly it.  You’re not in your “right mind” when depressed - things don’t make sense or matter, time feels out of sync, etc. - and that passage could only have been written so effectively by someone that’s been there.  Hopefully my experience will make me a better writer when I deal with issues like that (especially in the young adult fiction I want to try my hand at), as well having made me a more empathetic person generally.

Thankfully the depression is no longer a daily problem that cripples me in the way it did but I still have low days and still struggle on and off with the issues that contributed to it.  I feel cross and frustrated on the days when they rear their ugly heads again but the best way I can deal with them is to try to treat them as yet another learning experience that helps me better understand all the various shades of life.  As I face difficulties with a sense of belonging, choices, wanting things I can’t have, etc. I grow personally, gain a whole heap of insights and ideas and hopefully am able to write more authentically.

So, that was 2012 but what about 2013?  I believe God’s said it’ll be a much more steady year (phew!) and a year of breakthrough (yay!).  I don’t necessarily want an easy one – how would I learn, lol?!! – but I’ll take that!!  I’d love to see breakthrough manifested in so many different ways, but becoming a published writer would be one particularly amazing way, please ;-)