5 reasons I want to become an author…

April 11, 2016

Hello Bloggy followers 🙂

So, here I am again,  apologising for not writing a post in a long time.  We’ve just had two weeks off school for the Easter holiday and life as usual has been pretty hectic.

But, I thought that I would update you on my writing news.  Some of you may know that I am attempting to write my debut novel and have been for the last year.  This is not easy when you work almost full time and have a family to look after, but I continue to make progress and at last feel like I am getting somewhere.

If any of you have ever attempted to write a book, you will know that is by no means an easy thing to do.  It requires extreme dedication, hours and hours of sitting in front of a computer screen, staring in to space as you think up exciting things for your characters to do.  It requires an understanding family who give you the time and space to create and I am lucky that my family have been very supportive.

But not everyone is so understanding.  I tend to get quite strange looks from people when I mention that I am writing a book as if its a very weird and alien concept.  I guess it is, for most people.  But for me, this has been a dream for a fair few years and I thought that I would explain my reasons for wanting to become an author.

1. Top of my list has to be the overbearing desire to walk into a Waterstones and see my book beaming back at me from the shelves.  To be able to hold a real, tangible copy of something that I have painstakingly created in my hands is my ultimate fantasy.  Which is why, at this point in my writing journey, I am leaning towards traditional publishing as opposed to self-publishing.  I really want to explore this option and if I am not successful, then at least I know that I can still self-publish and launch my book into the world that way. I have nothing against self-publishing, in fact, I think its pretty amazing and has created an avenue for authors to get their work out to the world quickly without having to wait for rejection after rejection until they find that one agent who loves the book.  But I guess, I just crave the validation that comes with traditional publishing.  The notion that someone else thinks my book is great would be the icing on the cake.
2. To me, there is something really special about books of all kinds, but especially novels.  When I hold a book in my hand,  I can’t help but think about the hours and hours of effort that somebody somewhere has put in to creating it.  Especially when I think about novels written decades ago that would have been written by hand, or painstakingly typed on an old-fashioned typewriter – or even centuries ago where the author would have been faced with sometimes harrowing conditions in which to write and create their art.  I have a deep appreciation of what the author went through making sure the story was just right in difficult conditions and surroundings.  When you think about it that way, we are very lucky that we have computers to make life so much easier.  I’m not sure I would be so up for the challenge if I had to write 80,000 words by hand!
3. Some authors focus on plot while others turn their attention to the characters they create and I have discovered through this process that I am very much character driven.  For me, writing an interesting character, with all their faults and flaws is so fulfilling.  I am an absolute sucker for a protagonist with a past, or a vulnerability that makes them irresistible in my eyes.  I love a good old tortured soul – the main male character in my novel definitely fits in to this category.  I don’t know why, but I find unrequited love, or tragic love stories really interesting.  I love being able to decide what happens to them and being in charge of their destinies!
4. I wrote an article, in fact, it was one of the first articles I wrote on this blog about following your dreams.  Something that I have always believed in, though life has a habit of making this difficult for most of us.  But I decided that I really should take my own advice and what better way to teach my children than show them in real life what that struggle looks like.  I know it sounds cheesy, but I really want them to understand that to achieve what you want in life, you have to make sacrifices and work hard.  I hope that they are taking note of what an absolute legend their mother is and one day, I hope that its them striving to achieve what they want from life!
5. Finally, to put it bluntly, I want a writer’s life.  Not the part where they struggle to pay the bills waiting for an agent to fall in love with their manuscript necessarily, but the part where they get to set their own hours, use the creative part of their brains and create stories for other people to enjoy.

So there it is, in a nutshell.  5 reasons why I want to be an author and won’t stop until I make it happen, one way or another.

Thanks for reading.

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