This post is almost like starting my blog all over again.

So many people have asked me what it was like to begin writing (at such a late age?).  When I thought about the answer, I realized that, once I got into it, I could probably go on and on and fill several blogs, especially if I included all that I have learned (or hope I have learned), and am still learning, along the way.  Making my journey, hence my blog, more personal, might even make it more interesting.  I will probably have to expose more of myself, for one thing, and that’s what makes our characters more interesting, isn’t it?

Yikes.

I think this blog is going to be another part of this writer’s journey.

IN THE BEGINNING:

2006.  I was a big fan of Battlestar Galactica on television.  I loved the idea, the characters and especially the writing.  I had a new Mac, discovered and read a little fanfiction.  I thought, “I can do that,” and, for fun, started writing a series about the childhood of one of the adult characters of BSG.  The character’s immediately family and the character, himself, along with the name of their home, were all that I took from the TV series.  Everyone and everything else in the story were my own.  Readers actually liked my series!

I wondered if I might actually be a writer, seriously.  I turned the manuscript over to a professional editor to see if he thought writing was something I should pursue.  He let me know that, with additional work, I should go for it.

Here I am, six years, many books on writing, two college classes, and a continual subscription to “The Writer” magazine later.  Plus all those writing web sites and blogs I subscribe to.  “To which I subscribe” is better English, but I hear that placing prepositions at the end of a sentence has become acceptable these days.

I remember my high school English teacher abhorring the use of “and also” and “but also,” which I see even in literary fiction.  Cringe.  I will never do it.  Aren’t we told to remove all those redundant words?

Excuse me, I have wandered into my pet peeves.

I rewrote that first manuscript, changed the characters, the background, the local, etc., but not the name of the story, at least not yet.  How freeing it was to create whatever I wanted!  My first novel, now in its third draft, grew out of this process–Learning to Fly.  I haven’t found a better title, yet.

There you have it.  Next post I’ll go back five years to how I made that first draft into a redrafted manuscript.  I had no idea what a mess it was until I started learning what was involved in writing a decent novel–in learning to write well.