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.

It's Nano time again

I wasn't going to take part in NaNoWrimo this year. Although I found the crazy challenge of writing a novel in 30 days exciting and even enjoyable last year, this time I felt that I didn't have another novel in me.

I am so glad that has changed and it was all due to me attending the Wrekin Writers workshop which was part of the Wellington literary festival.

Kate Long, bestselling author of 'The Bad Mother's Handbook', ran an excellent work shop on creating characters at speed which I found so useful but it was the warm up exercise that got me inspired and gave me the thirst to keep on writing without stopping. The exercise was simply to start with the line ' I remember' and when I started writing, my pen didn't leave the page. It was a great feeling as I scribbled down everything 'I could remember' and the words just seemed to flow out of me.

I chose a personal topic that has been a part of my life since I was a child and so I was able to write without even thinking about it, I loved the feeling of putting pen to paper and not even questioning what I was writing down - because it was real.

During the break I talked to Bryan Vaughan, a very successful Nano participant and very talented writer. His enthusiasm got to me while we were talking but again, I still didn't have the desire to enter.

But then a few days later something happened to change my mind when inspiration struck.  I love those days when something literally does pop into your head. I got that feeling the moment I woke up. An idea came to me and so I had the urge to enter NanoWrimo again and write another story.  The difference with this one is it will be a true story.  The story of 'Chad' my beatufiul horse that has been a friend to me since I was aged 14.  We have grown up together and shared a lifetime of experiences, most of them wonderful and some of them dreadful.  He has seen me go from a horse mad teenager with plaits to a horse mad middle aged woman with a bob and I have seen a true gentleman grow old while still having a passion for chocolate and polo mints.   

I have never until now thought about 'true life' stories so this is very different for me, I am not a famous person and Chad is only a part of my own familiy life, to me that doesn't matter. It may not be a best selling novel but I do know that I can certainly write 50,000 words over 30 days about it.

So here goes, roll on the 1st November, I can't wait to start.

A speedy sequel with NaNoWriMo

After weeks of consideration, I finally decided to have a go at Nanowrimo this year. National Novel Writing Month ( www.nanowrimo.org)  is certainly a great way of making you write instead of putting it off until the housework is done, the dog is walked or any other tasks that stop you from writing.

I felt terrified when I opened up a blank screen today  but as soon as I started I couldn't stop.  It was amazing not to worry about spelling or grammar or how it reads.  I simply let it flow out of my head and onto the keyboard and computer screen. Within 30 minutes I had nearly 900 words which spurred me on further so now on day one, I am slightly ahead.

Just have to keep this up for another 29 days and I may just have a very rough draft of my next novel.  I hope this will be the sequel to my novel Red Kite which I hope to publish this month on Kindle.  Red Kite took my almost ten years to complete so this has to be a better option.  I think if I can at least get the bare bones of  the novel down I can add the flesh at a later date.  Sounds a bit like a horror story but I am certainly not scared of having a go.