It’s that time of the year again: beautiful sunsets after lazy evenings, walks on the beach with the dog (without us both being blown to St Ives) and mucking about in seawater that won’t leave my ankles with frostbite. Apart from making me all romantic and dreamy, summer is also the time when I take stock.
So this weekend I have been thinking about the lessons I have learned during my short spell as a writer.
9 REVELATIONS
1) Making money – any money, even a pound – from writing is somewhat tricky. . . to say the least.
2) No one will work as hard for my books as I will.
3) Perfectionism is a strength when it comes to editing, but a weakness when applied to the first draft. When applied to the first draft, perfectionism tends to see me rewriting the first page endlessly and finding that after a week’s work I have only two hundred (admittedly gleaming) words.
4) I am in desperate need of handwriting lessons. Am I the only person in the world who can’t read their own handwriting? This has been a minus in terms of notebook work.
5) People will let me down, left, right and centre, but a few brilliant souls will come up trumps and be as good as their word.
6) The blogosphere is an awesome place for a new writer. There are connections to be made with like-minded readers and writers, and there is valuable book industry information to be discovered. The blogosphere is also home to a small number of very unpleasant trolls.
7) In the three years that I’ve been a writer I have checked my email approximately 55,000 times (conservative estimate). I can count the exciting emails I have received on one hand (okay, one finger).
8 ) The editors of the major publishing houses would, I suspect, mostly tick the same box for socio-economic status.
9) Writing challenges me and brings me contentment in a way that no other activity can.
The perfectionist in me (also known as The OCD Monster) is nagging me to add another revelation here, since ten is a rounder number than nine. I shall resist. . . but if I were to add another it would relate to the difficulty of finding homes for books that break genre rules.
Hope you all enjoy this fine sunny Monday (except for poor RosyB, who tells me her town has awful weather this morning). See you next time.
