I am a 50 year old, who has always wanted to be a writer.
As a teenager in the ’60’s I wrote a short story about a ‘Sympathetic’ computer, that people could access in their local libraries to help them solve whatever problems they were having, (before anyone had heard of the Internet), and it got published in a small magazine, but family problems stopped me from carrying on.
Then when my daughters were small I tried to write four novels for Mills and Boon, only to be told that there wasn’t enough romance in my stories. My friend, who was an avid M&B reader, told me that what they really meant was that I didn’t have enough sex in my stories. Difficult to write a sex scene with 3 and 8 year old children running around! And to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t really a genre I felt totally comfortable with.
In 2000 I wrote two short stories for a local writing competition, and to my delight I won 1st and 3rd prizes! (all of £25!) But it was a start, and I went on to write a novel, but trying to get your book ‘out there’ for the world to see is hard. A Publisher doesn’t want to know if you haven’t got an Agent, and an Agent doesn’t want to know if you haven’t been published. Catch 22 so to speak.
Then suddenly I realized I had turned 50, and if I didn’t do something now, I would end up with a very big regret at the end of my life.
So I signed up for the Nanowrimo competition. It doesn’t have a prestigious award at the end, nobody gets to see the novel that you write, but an amazing amount of authors who have participated have gone on to be published. It’s a start. It will get me writing like a professional. It will get me writing on a regular basis, and maybe even get me to eventually to produce some more short story stuff, (which I hate doing, I like to ramble too much! lol). Either which way, if I get the 50,000 words of my novel done in 30 days, I will get a certificate, and I will have completed an amazing accomplishment in my eyes.
This is one aspect of me, that most of my friends didn’t know before. So wish me luck on my new adventure, and I’ll try to keep you posted.
Hi Sue have just read all your blogs as promised I see your worse half is being his usual obnoxious non supportive pig ignorant self. I swear one of these days when he comes here I am really going to hit him where it hurts him most. Right in his mean tightfisted pocket!!
I don’t know if you received my email of yesterday or not but what I said was – and I quote- Have now caught up with you and the first 16 chapters are now read and proofed. Please can you type a little faster as this is absolutely brilliant and I cannot wait to read the rest of it. I personally think it surpasses anything you have done before and perhaps there is a sequal in the offing too?
Love you lots Linda
Thank you Linda.
Yes I can see this story being spread out in to a trilogy, hopefully.
May be I’ll write the next one for the Nanowrimo next year…. if I don’t find a publisher mean time, then of course all bets are off, as I have a funny feeling I could, possibly write all three in one year!!!
As for writing a little faster, I’ve just finished chapter 20, will be working on chapter 21 tonight, so you should be getting the next three chapters tomorrow! I know its not as fast as picking up a book, but hey I’m creating here, and I do need time to breathe sometimes! lol