Wake up and smell the coffee #AtoZchallenge

Writing’s a skill, one I’m struggling with.  Hopefully I’ve done everything I need to.

Storyline – check

Characters – check

Able to write? – maybe

Able to edit – getting there

Enough things to distract me – check  oops..

There’s a tip I learnt many years ago when wanting to write about anything, I remember it as the 5 W’s and a H.  Who, what, where, when, why & how, know that about your topic and you can write anything.

If you’ve been alongside me for any of this month’s challenge, you’ll know I have a few insecurities and worries about my writing.  What was that?  Surely not!  Tee hee..  OK more than a few, I thought this challenge was about the research I needed to do before I could carry on editing my draft novels.  As usual, it was about something much deeper, I’ve learnt more about myself and my skills while writing my AtoZ’s.

So you want to write a novel, well I jumped in, as usual, without checking what my skills were, what was needed and if I could do any novel justice.  When I realised I needed to understand more about story outlines, what on earth was a protagonist, I searched writing tips online, absorbed them through my skin, then tried to see if I followed them, put myself on a writing course that scared me, joined a critique group, ok, founded a critique group with some mates and realising the amount of research needed for said draft novels, set to write an AtoZ on my novels’ research.  (Practicing my elongation of sentences.. I’d usually frown at a 2 liner.. Yeah, I’ve still not worked out where to put apostrope’s..)

Have I done all my research during this month?  No, what my AtoZ’s have been about is me, my insecurities and finding my way amongst many others who are walking the same path.  That’s my nod to wake up and smell the coffee, clichés.  What I’ve realised this month is that my writing is so simple, so basic, so short sentences, few clichés, lots of emotion, hardly any adverbs, some verbs.   Everything most writers try to remove from their writing I need to add.  Make some of my sentences longer, add in some description, throw in a cliché here and there.  And that’s ok!

I’ve been feeling inadequate because I couldn’t talk in the same language as some other writers but I didn’t need to.  I write from the heart, I’m a pantser and years of writing for the media has reduced my writing style to short and snappy, that’s who I am.  With many stories to tell, I’m finally learning how to turn them into novels and that’s great!

We’re nearly at Z and I’ve woken up.  Phew!  Hand me that coffee.  I’m in need here, I’ve got 3 novels to edit and more to write!

My AtoZchallenge posts are about writing my novels.  The current titles that I’m writing about are ‘Bags’, ‘Holiday stories’ and ‘Dream Gardener’.

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