Me and English lessons never got on… I got chucked out of the mainstream English class and given contemporary literature. No Shakespeare or Keats for me, I read Brighton Rock and A Taste of Honey which meant my eventual love of reading wasn’t ruined by traditional teaching methods.
Becoming a writer has slipped up on me in my 50’s, I was completely shocked and overwhelmed when I achieved my first 50k words in 2010. I am now a firm believer that anyone can do anything if they set their mind to it and learn the how.
Everyone has a novel in them, there’s always a way. I’m often asked how I start, where does the inspiration come from, where’s the story and I ask back, tell me a story, anything, pick some characters and put them in a location. Now, give them something to do. By this time they’ve usually mentioned some names, described the characters and started to put them in a situation where things might have happened to them. Ok, you’re getting there, what’s their background, that will affect how they respond next. Finally, throw a few bombshells (obstacles or challenges) their way, how do they react, what do they need to change to resolve their situation, and there’s your story, job done.
Writing it down, letting it flow, that’s the easy part for me but then came the edit! Editing’s been much harder than I ever expected. Finally, I’ve come to an agreement with myself on how I will do it and it’s getting done, slowly and steadily, 10 pages at a time with lots of colourful fairy cake cases and highlighter pens. I’ve exposed my novels to the blogging world through this challenge and would like you to gently encourage me to keep going and help me celebrate when I finish one of them one day..
My AtoZchallenge posts are about writing, parts of my novels or some research I need to do for them. I’m not allowing myself to write about anything other than topics linked to the books, my books. The current titles that I’m writing about are ‘Bags’, ‘Holiday stories’ and ‘Dream Gardener’.
lynnelives 