Ten years ago this week, I stopped at the local mall on my way back from work and bought a new A4 notebook and some pens.
Ten years ago today, I sat down on my front doorstep in the early evening sunshine with that notebook and one of the pens and began to write.
It would be weeks…months…before I told anybody what I was attempting to do.
At that time in my life, I knew I had to do something just for me and I decided, after a lot of soul searching, that the time felt right to put pen to paper once more.
As a child and a teenager, right into my twenties, I wrote. I wrote short stories, poems, even the first “book” but marriage and kids came along, and I put the lid back on my pen.
A series of events in both my work and my personal life took its toll on me emotionally, mentally, and physically and I recognised by early 2013 that I needed to do something just for me, something that gave me pleasure, something that relaxed me (that’s very hard to do) and something no one could take away from me.
What I sat down and began to write ten years ago today was what went on to become my debut novel, Stronger Within. The first book in the Silver Lake series. My first born “book baby.”
Now, I’ve written and blogged about this a few times over the years, so I’ll try not to repeat myself too much here.
Through losing myself in the pages of that notebook and countless others over the last ten years, I found myself too.
Writing is one of my key coping mechanisms in life. I journal extensively but writing my book babies is my escape from reality. Over the years, writing has become like oxygen to me. I need it to thrive!
Yes, there are days/evenings when my characters don’t want to play and that’s when I turn my attention to a short story or a poem or a piece of flash fiction.
There have been many occasions when I’ve read over the words that I wrote the night before and scored through them because I wasn’t happy with them.
I’m not a big planner, preferring to write from the heart and go with the flow. I always have key scenes in mind but there’s no detailed chapter plan (in fact splitting the tale into chapters is one of the last things I do), no storyboard, no character profiles. There are numerous post-its and scribbled notes and a handwritten calendar. This “pantser” approach did bite me with Book Baby 3, Bonded Souls, when I realised that I was too far through the timeline for one key scene. I wrote the scene and tried to slot it in where it was meant to be but that fundamentally didn’t work. There was no alternative…I scrapped circa 40k words and re-wrote it. Lesson learned!
Even with my current work in progress, Book Baby 8, I scrapped about 5k words and started it again.
I never actually “throw out” those scrapped words. I neatly put a line through them and start a fresh page.
I’ve kept every word I’ve written for the past 10 years and that includes blogs, short stories, gig reviews, poems…everything! That’s a lot of notebooks!
I’m not big on giving writing advice. Partly because I don’t feel qualified to do so and partly because if you are setting out on your creative journey, it’s YOUR journey so, explore and find your own path that suits your style and your story. Just because one approach works for me doesn’t mean it will work for you or anyone else. Trust in the story.
It’s been a surreal ten years. I can’t actually believe it has been ten years. Where did they go?
It’s also been an incredible ten years. I couldn’t have kept going without the encouragement, love, and support of a group of very special people. (You know who you are.)
My mantra has been a quote one of them shared on social media a long time ago.
Dreams get you started.
Discipline keeps you going.
And dreams do come true!
If you’d told me ten years ago as I sat on my front doorstep with that new notebook and pen that I’d see my name on the cover of a real book, that my words would earn five-star reviews on Amazon and that people from all over the world would read my books, I’d have laughed in total disbelief, but it’s happened…
If reading this is tempting you to pick up your own pen and start out on your own creative journey, DO IT!
There really is no feeling like making that dream come true.
Here’s to the next ten years and beyond!
Coral McCallum 