Getting started
My Thoughts as a first-time writer, writing my debut novel.
First, you do some planning the plot, the characters involved, how many chapters, then comes the outline. The broad scope of the work to come. The ideas flow but the words to match don't always come that easily, they come in drips and drabs. Sometimes they immediately make sense, sometimes it's a mess that you delete and rewrite, read, delete and rewrite. This process makes you reflect on the choices you made in the initial planning.
You go back to the drawing board, you add, you delete you refine and the story start to take shape, starts to make a bit more sense. What no one tells you is how hard it is to stay motivated and committed when you reach a so-called dead end, when you just don't know how to move over to the next chapter or you have to create confrontation. The thought that goes into it the planning that has to begin again, feels like you're starting all over. When you stare at the blank screen and the word just don't make any sense.
Then you get your little wins. A finished chapter, a hook you know is going to pique the curiosity. This motivates you to keep going. As a person who decided late in life to pursue a career in writing, balancing a full-time job, having a home, family and still make time to write. It's not easy.
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Ideas don’t wait to be written down they come in waves at the most impossible times, so you keep a notebook and pen handy on your desk at work or a note on your phone walking in a shopping centre. Then when you do sit down to write all your little notes start to come to life on the page as you type, it's a feeling you cannot imagine. The pride when you sit back and you read what you have typed up from the keywords in your notes.
This inspires hope that one day your work will be read by someone who is captivated by the characters, the plot and wants to continue reading to the end. With a question of what else has this writer written or when is the next book coming out.
These are my initial feelings I’m sure each writer has experienced it in some shape or form different to mine.
Final thoughts keep writing keep making mistakes and correcting them you will get to the end and write the story you want to tell in your way and I'm sure it will be great.
Till next time
Madison Riley
