Throwback Thursday: What Writing Means to Me

Way back in 2012 I'd freshly arrived in Devon and had helped to set up a writers group. One of our fellow writers had set up an interesting project 'Vie Hebdomadaires' where each week guest bloggers would take over and write about anything which interested them. It's a fun project and there's been a wide variety of topics covered. If you've got spare time, I'd definitely recommend a flick through. Anyway, I wrote this piece about 'What Writing Means To Me'. It was a precis of where I was at that time with my writing and partly why I feel the need to write. Looking back, I'm amazed at how much I'd accomplished and also, how much more I've completed. In many respects it's easy to overlook our accomplishments, but in the five years since I wrote the article, I've published 'Akane: The Last of the Orions', I've also published two other books in different genres, the adult collection of short stories 'Weird Wild' and the pre-teen novel 'Ghoulsome Graveyard'. There's been assorted short stories published, The Girls Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse has been revived and whilst I lost all my original work on my previous website, here I am blogging again. This amongst assorted crafting projects, short stories, working and being a full time mum and that's not too shabby! Click the link above to see the original article or carry on reading below. There is an inordinate amount written about writing: the who, where and why. Quotes on how you should write, what you should write about. To be honest, as someone who has written for years but who is only now trying to become a ‘professional’ writer, it’s all very intimidating, which is why I loved a mini-Twitter campaign led by Jason Arnopp (scriptwriters for shows such as Doctor Who as well as a number of movies) which said that if you write, you’re a writer. Not ‘aspiring’, not ‘desperate’, not ‘wannabe’. You put words onto paper in an order which makes for (hopefully) interesting reading. This led to a lot of people, in the style of a Hollywood movie, announce, ‘My name is … I am a writer.’ So, since then, I’ve taken on board Jason’s words. I no longer describe myself as ‘aspiring’ or ‘attempting to be’. I write, therefore I am a writer. 2012 is the year which I’m focusing on my writing, trying to go from ‘aspiring’ to ‘published’. I set myself a number of aims (I say aims because it sounds less daunting than New Year Resolutions) for the year which I suppose have made me a little introspective about my writing career to date. I’ve always written. I remember as a child writing a wandering story which I proudly told my cousin ran to ten pages. During my teenage years there was the cliched angst-ridden poetry and short stories and I was lucky enough that my English teacher channeled me towards writing for the local paper who were creating a section written by youngsters. My first article, about my experiences of learning to drive, won a prize. I was later asked to review Les Miserables when it was touring and arrived in my local town. At university I focused my energies in other directions and it wasn’t until my husband and I went traveling that the voices which had talked me into writing those ten pages as a child came back to me. I started a story based on a little hummingbird who got lost on his way to visit his armadillo friend and ended up traveling around South America in much the same way we were (although without the 36 hour bus journeys!). There’s some ok ideas in the story, but I knew I needed help so I enlisted on the London School of Journalism’s distance learning course for people who want to write children’s books. An interesting course which helped me understand my characters a bit more, under the encouragement of my tutor, I embarked on my first novel ‘Akane’. It’s a bit of a science fiction, adventure story for young adults and I loved having that adventure with those characters. I’ll be honest, they surprised me a number of times with their actions: the good becoming bad and vice versa, on character who was supposed to only have a walk on part became integral to the story and the pain my characters experienced, I experienced. It was around that time that I discovered National Novel Writing Month. I’ve written at length about NaNoWriMo and am a proud ‘Wrimo’ myself so I won’t go into details here but the idea is that in 30 days you write a 50,000 word novel. It sounds a lot, but when broken down it’s only 1667 words per day. 2012 will be my fourth year taking part in the madness of NaNoWriMo which has helped me create a number of different novels and I look forward to every November when it starts again. Thanks to NaNoWriMo and the work I was creating for them, I realised that I’m a genre writer: the voices in my head are all from the worlds of the paranormal, the mythical or other galaxies. So, I decided to attend my first convention for genre writers, Fantasy Con, down in Brighton last year. It was all quite exciting and nerve-wracking. There were authors there who I’d read for years, while some I had never heard of but whose work I have since picked up and enjoyed. While there I met a lady named Adele. We chatted and got on well, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to see or hear from her until the next convention so it was a surprise when she contacted me to say she was setting up a new blog and would I like to take part. I was interested, blogging is still fairly new to me so it would be good to work with someone with a lot more experience. However, it was the theme of the blog which really drew me in: The Girls’ Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse. To celebrate all things feminine when the end comes as well as offer tongue in cheek advice about how to survive when the zombie hoards come crashing through your door. I loved the idea and immediately submitted my first article ‘Running In Heels (From Zombies)’. Since it’s launch last October, the Apocalypse Girls are we are known have developed quite a following and our ‘feral leader’ as Adele has affectionately been named is constantly coming up with new plans to challenge us. I was also lucky enough to meet another inspirational woman, Oriana with whom I have set up a writing group in Exeter, called ‘Resident Writers’. We’d both attended different writing groups but they didn’t quite fill the need we had: stimulating us and encouraging us to write. In the months between NaNoWriMo, I’d often go for weeks without writing anything and like any muscle, don’t using your writing skills and they get rusty. We launched in March this year and already have a fabulous group of writers from different genres who come and write with us. I’ve even started writing poetry which I’ve not done since I was at school! So, now I am a ‘writer’ what next? I have a number of voices muttering in my head, demanding my attention, but even those who have had their stories told are asking more of me: that I let others read their tales and share their journey. Therefore I’m about to start a new adventure in my writing career, the search for an agent and a publisher. I know it’s going to be a hard and difficult road, but at least I have a lot of people to keep me company, even if my head is getting a little crowded.