This summer I’ve almost written an entire novel

Ever had so many ideas for stories in your head that you feel like you might just explode?

I have but it was mostly when I was teen. Lately, I’ve been picking up the pace a bit more and it feels amazing for my creative head space.

So far, I’ve had three novel ideas. That is, for young adult fiction – the market I desperately want be in. I’ve had a couple of ideas for a sci-fi novel or two as well. But these require a lot of research and I’m not sure my brain’s cut out for all that right now. I’m thinking perhaps in my late twenties is when I’ll hit my sci-fi writing stride. A lot of my ideas involve space travel, time travel and if I’m really indulgent then a little bit of dinosaurs too. But I’ll save that for another time.

Anyway, I’m getting off topic.

So, like any writer does, I scribble these ideas down. I have an abundance of notebooks. And these tiny put-away-like-they’re-nothing ideas that might someday turn into something I keep hold of. You never know. One day these put away thoughts might well hold the key to my success.

I’m writing a novel right now – a Y/A one which I actually and genuinely love. I think, for a little while, I forgot what it could be like to let yourself get lost in fiction and how it feels for a project or a story to completely engulf your own world, for it to be all you think about.

I’m ashamed to admit it but as I got older I lost that creative bubble I used to never peep out of. I thought this was normal. I slowly became focused on the editorial side of writing that my fiction world consequently never even got past page 20 because I would slam it so hard it couldn’t fight hard enough to breathe. I was, to use a cliche, my own very worst critic.

I was beyond brutal with my own writing.

But this summer I’ve conquered that bad habit. I’ve been writing. (Ergo, sorry for the lack of posts). I’ve been getting lost in my own fiction world and I’ve almost successfully written an entire novel over the course of this long, hot and notoriously beautiful summer. (I live in Cornwall, so almost every day is beautiful here, yay!)

(A view from just over the road where I live)

I even signed up as a camper at Camp NaNoWriMo and even though I always seem to do this and it never usually gets me very far, this time I stuck at it and I completed my goal of writing over 10,000 words in a month. I can’t tell you the joy I got over achieving that goal.

For me, it was pretty phenomenal. So I’m carrying on with it.

You ever read a book and think, ‘I could’ve done better than that’? Well, it turns out that I’m doing it, even if only just to say that I’ve written a complete novel.

I don’t want to be someone who waits until their retirement to get everything out onto the page. I want it now.

I know that when I’ve finished, that’s when the hard part really begins which is the editing process. Apparently, this is where a lot of the real writing gets done, to quote the theory books and all the other famous writers out there.

But I’m moving forward. I’m at just over 46,000 words so far and I’m probably not going to stop until I hit 80,000 which is the average length of a complete novel. As well as that, I’ve also found the time to submit to other writing competitions. I’ve hit a productive writing/creative streak and it’s not stopping.

My thoughts in general are that this summer has been a blessing. But in the end, I know, it all comes down to yourself.
Your motivation.
And whether you believe in yourself to do it.
And maybe if you can’t, then find someone else who does. Ride their motivational current to get yourself where you need to be.

You never know, it might be worth it in the end.

So, be right back. I’m novel writing!

What Beautiful Days We Had

We thought we were so grown up sitting in that restaurant by the sea. Soft music played and fairy lights twinkled there at dusk. You put your hand over mine and laughed when I slurped the soup.

We had our beginnings in Cornwall. Now it’s time to watch you leave, to go on and make your life beautiful.

I always found peace here, yet you never could.

---

“Good luck.”

“You too.”

Hurlers

Hurlers. I wanted them to swirl, to lift me up with the wind, to dance like they used to. But all around them was snow. I gathered it up in my hands. I ran laughing and playing in the cold.

The dogs barked and I knew I was home.

Eventually, we climbed to the top of a boulder and our eyes found their way across the fields, the green and the ever-crowding trees.

I had strawberries and they tasted fresh in the age old land.

Writing Should Be Yours

I am conflicted. I don’t update this blog as regularly as I’d like to. I think it’s partly due to the fact that I was so very much in love with my old blog that this one feels almost flat compared to it. I spent hours trying to make it look pretty and get everything up to scratch but something about it just doesn’t feel right.

Is it me?

Maybe it’s to do with the fact that this is the blog where I write my ‘professional work’. I miss writing about my interests, about my cat and silly little things that please me throughout the day. Sweet little nothings, if you prefer.

So I’m packing that all in and I’ve decided to go with the flow and do what I like with this.

Writing shouldn’t be restrictive. It should be free, creative and yours. Your own to do with what you wish. My wish is to be free and so I’m wiping away those restrictive bonds that my mind seems to hold onto when looking and writing for this blog.

Take me to the beach. Let’s look at the stars and write stories.

My other blog – my more personal one – is, I will admit, in desperate need of an update. It’s difficult to balance between the two. So perhaps they should just merge into each other. They can be best friends, even. Complement each other when it feels right, but other times be separate when they need to.

I’ll try to update my writing progress more regularly, if not for you guys actually reading it then more for myself. It’s wonderful to keep a diary, and this blog is a diary of sorts, except I’m not going to write my most deep and intimate thoughts and name names of people who fascinate or infuriate me.

Because you never know; it could be you. And that would just be awkward if you knew I was in a passion about you in some way, shape or form. Oops!

Today I’m going to be working towards writing competitions, filling out a writing application to be in a writer’s workshop with novelist Matt Haig, and sub editing for the publication Cornish Story.

So ta-ta for now. I will be reporting back soon!

Visiting Coleridge’s Cottage and Agatha Christie’s Home

Two of the best known writers throughout history: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Agatha Christie.

I got to walk around their houses today. I’ve never felt something like that before, to be in a room where I know Coleridge wrote some of his most famous poetry (Frost at Midnight being one of them), to actually walk across the same few rooms that Agatha Christie once shared memories with her family in, it was truly inspirational, motivational and grounding to take in. I felt so humble.

Purely by being there, I feel like our paths have crossed, even if it is from beyond the grave, so to speak.

Coleridge’s Cottage

I first decided I wanted to go to Coleridge’s house earlier this year when studying one of his poems for an essay. To know that he looked to nature for writerly freedom and inspiration really struck a chord with me back in January and, seeing where he lived today, in a quaint little cottage with his wife and two children, well that struck a chord even harder.

Living in Cornwall, you don’t really get away from nature at all and, from growing up here, it’s kind of hard to put down, or get away from. People tend to come to Cornwall to escape their everyday lives, the hustle bustle and the whirring drone of the everyday. But I’m fortunate enough to see it every morning, noon and night time from my own home.

I can almost see the sea from my bedroom window and I get to pass adorable little sailing boats on a shining, dazzly river whenever I walk into town. The views from pretty much anywhere are amazing, and this is one of the reasons why I love it here so much.

Now, although Coleridge’s cottage that I visited today wasn’t in Cornwall at all, I still love that he chose to write and live for a time in the countryside, that he found it so important.

I got to visit his garden, the kitchen, his writing room and even the bedroom. None of it was very big, but it was so jarring to stand where he once stood that I took my time looking around.

The Wordsworths and Coleridge all hung out together in the very room I was standing in – which is pretty amazing.

There were all sorts of incredible artifacts around the cottage. Some of them included a sword owned by Coleridge during the war, quills he used to write with, and even locks of his hair from after he died.

Tiny snippets of his life were written on little cards in every room. I liked that, because it made it more real, like he wasn’t just a name attached to some image of ‘prolific writer’; it made his life real. He was a person, just like you and me, and he lived a life just like anyone else’s.

He just happened to have a way with words.

Later in the day, I went from Somerset to Devon and found myself in Agatha Christie’s holiday home. Apparently, she called it ‘the loveliest place in the world’. I can see why, because I’ve never seen a home quite like it.

Inside, it had every single Agatha Christie book ever published and probably almost every single edition, too. There were dolls that she played with, old typewriters she used, and furniture that has never been moved since the way she left them.

It was a very grand looking house and walking through it was like time travelling back to the 1930’s because pretty much everything was intact. In the bedroom, the clothes she wore were even hung up in the wardrobe. I spent a very long time staring at them, if I’m totally honest.

Outside, there were such lovely gardens and a beautiful boathouse down on the river right at the bottom. You could even see seals there if you stayed long enough. By the side of the house walking back round, I noticed there was an air raid shelter too. It was locked in chains but it, all the same, to think of the memories that are contained down there. Imagine how afraid they all must’ve been, locked tight, shut away – if they even ever had to use it.

The day ended with a stroll back down by the river.

Even though I know many people have touched these places – and that some people get to see these places every day – I still hold dear to me the fact that nothing has made me feel so happy like this for such a long time.

For a writer, to interact with these beautiful places, to actually get to touch the walls of writers’ history, it is truly memorable and I’m going to carry these memories – and hopefully this feeling – with me for a very long time.

I want nothing more than to write, and to get to do all of this, it just makes me want it even more.