Wednesday 12 September 2007

A Whole New World of Hurt

Beginnings are always difficult. Beginning a new book, beginning a chapter, beginning a new writing session, sitting gazing at the monitor and willing it to start filling up with words.

And so it is with some trepidation that I begin this blog. Not my first blog - I popped that particular cherry a few years ago - but my first writing blog. Writing blog. So now my blogging has to have some vestige of skill to it...

Anyway, the hard facts. I'm a thirtysomething female, tapping away at the keyboard (as my mother calls it, doing 'Tappy Lappy', hence the title) and dreaming of being published. I live in London, run my own business, largely from home, and write whenever the phone stops ringing.

I've written several children's plays that have been performed by professional companies, but as yet I haven't been published. Plays are huge fun - and in a previous incarnation I was an actor - but writing children's books and women's/comedy fiction is where my real desires lie.

Currently I'm working on two books: firstly, I'm editing a chapter book for 6-9 year olds, which is far too bloody long for its own good; secondly there's my Chick Lit book, which is two thirds of the the way through its first draft.

Being a former actor, I am well acquainted with rejection, creative blockage, general gnashing of teeth and dreaming of big dreams. But writing is lonelier. The social life isn't as nearly as good. So, I'm creating this blog to try and reach out to my fellow scribes in the hope that we can all help each other with dealing with this wierd pursuit.

(If all the above sounds a tad pompous, don't fret. I get more user-friendly the more you get to know me. And hopefully the writing will improve. So stick around?)

Right. That's the end of the beginning. Not as concise and enthralling as I'd like, but no doubt I'll go back and edit it when I'm stuck on the middle bit or the tricky ending.

2 comments:

Dani said...

hi, I'm looking forward to reading your blog!

KeVin K. said...

Actually a blog abut writing can be devoid of talent and still have plenty of readers. I know, I've been drivelloing on about nothing much for a year and some now and no one's noticed. However you can now let it be known you have a blog about writing -- this will alert folks to the fact (or in my case fiction) that you know enough about the craft to share your hard-won insights with the world at large. Me? I just copy and paste from the blogs of real writers. There are so many of them out there no one could possibly read them all, so if you make your selections from generally obscure sources no one's the wiser.