I'm a writer. Or I at least pretend to be anyway.
Don't expect to search for me online and have a Goodreads author page come up, a string of novels on Amazon, or articles on Huffington Post, because you wont find anything. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. But that doesn't mean I am not writer, it just means I am an unpublished writer. You could take this to mean that I am a bad writer, and that no one will publish my work, but in all honesty I am terrified of the thought of actually publishing my writing.
I had a chapter of a novel that I am working on included in an anthology, but I took me until ten minutes before the deadline to gain the confidence and hit send on the email. Although I was accepted, I stopped writing shortly after, due to the amount of uni work that I had, and even then I found that hard to do. If felt as if something in my brain had stopped working, as though a bunch of wires had been ripped out, or the drawer where I keep my writing abilities had welded itself shut. This went on for months. The more I tried to write, the more I hated myself. How could I call myself a writer if I couldn't write. Was it writers block? I don't know. I think it was more of a me block. I got stuck inside my head, and then my head got suck inside of me - wow, that didn't mean to sound as dirty as it come across. Get your head out of the gutter ;)
Anyway.
For months I would plan projects, even attempt to write them, but nothing would happen. My sentences wouldn't make sense, my plot wouldn't fit, and my characters were telling me to fuck off and do one. They didn't like me either. But here is the funny part. Not funny haha, actually it might be, or it might be a sign of madness. I went shopping last week, and I saw this girl/woman* and I was convinced that it was one of the characters in my novel. It was so weird, because I have been writing her to be this evil, heart crushing (literally) person, but here she was in the supermarket with some other woman, talking about bread. "I like the thick one, I can really get my teeth into it," to which her friend replied: "Oh, I bet you do!" And then they laughed and walked away. I stood there thinking, why are you shopping, you're supposed to be causing havoc and trying to destroy the lives of everyone you ever met, and then this led me to thinking more of her character, and primarily who she is. Causing havoc is what she does, but not who she is. It was at that point where I felt the office drawer ping open and have all these files spew all over the places, the wires had been replaces and whatever had stopped working, started again. I abandoned the rest of my shopping list, went home, and I have been writing ever since.
In those nine months I could have finished it twice over and be well into the editing stage right now, but that isn't how it works. I am glad that my brain forced me to take some time away from it, because looking at my old drafts now, I can see where I may have made a few bad decisions, and did what I wanted to do, rather than what the characters wanted to do.
I find it hard to blog, and write fiction at the same time, which is a shame because I love doing them both so much, but it's not a bad thing, because I now have two writing spaces I can flick back and forth between. That being said, whilst I have my writing mojo back, I will be prioritising that, but I still will be posting as often as I can. A few weeks ago, I sent out somewhat of a questionnaire to bunch of other bloggers, all about their favourite books, which I have formed together into some pretty cool posts, and will be starting to post next week, so there is that to look forward too! I am also going to start trying to keep to a schedule, and posting at least one book review on a certain day every week, which is yet to be decided. I may also start sharing some of my writing/updates on my novel writing, if you guys don't mind.
This post has ended up being a lot longer that what I hoped for it to be.
So Until next time.
Kirstie
xoxo
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