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.
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