A change in direction

Forgive me fellow bloggers it's too long since I last did an update.  

This year has flown and with the wonderful weather, I have spent nearly every lunch hour through the summer, sitting on the banks of the river Severn with my note pad. I have written lots of poems as part of my Bardic course with the British Druid Order and made endless notes for future projects.  These times have been so idyllic, only the odd dog would stop and acknowledge me as I sat in my perfect writing environment, the words seemed to flow as easily as the river itself.  It was only the church clock chiming that would remind me to get back to work.

I also started penning another children's novel for which the deadline was February 2015 if I wanted to get it looked at by a particular publisher but then just as the summer ends, so did all these projects because I had to take a change in direction.

 In early September I lost my beautiful old horse Chad, he was a massive part of my life for over 34 years.  I had started writing about him last year when I entered  NanoWrimo and managed to get 50,000 words down, but of course it didn't have an ending then and it was very rough and ready as is the norm with the madness of NanoWrimo.  

These sad circumstances gave me that change in direction and fresh motivation to write his story. This time I want to take it steady. There is no rush. I want to capture every last detail of how that special horse affected me and the other people in my life.

I have been doing a lot of research on these real life stories and I do find it a little scary that I will have to put quite a bit about myself in there too.  I find this difficult as I worry about how far to go. As with many people there are things in my life that I would rather not rake up again but our lives were inter-twined.  I can't write his story without telling a bit of mine too and really get across how much that horse changed my life.  He changed it when he came into it and he changed it when he went out of it.  He changed me from a painfully shy child lacking in confidence to someone who feels at ease when talking to people.

It will be a challenge, I have read so many creative non-fiction books to get an idea of how to go about it. 'Marley and Me' by John Grogan was amazing and the interview at the back of the book was so helpful. His advice is to tell the story fully and honestly, do not hold back on detail and believe in yourself.

With these words of advice I have to give it a go, I owe it to him.