Hey Thinking out like here xx :D
A little prior warning grab a drink, maybe a snack and find a comfy seat as this turned out to be longer than I intended.
It's been a while since I've uploaded a post and I know it isn't a Thursday but because it's been a while I feel it doesn't matter what day this goes up. So here I am I know I always say I'm back, but at least for this week, I am. I started this last Friday 19th October when I woke up at three am, I needed to write this post as it originally started out being a tweet but you will soon see why I had to turn it into a blog post. I got carried away by my words as usual oops.
Here are some things I have learnt since I've been writing and some things that no one tells you about writing, for anyone who is looking into being a writer of any kind.
Some truths about writing, nobody told me how hard it would be, looking for agents/ publishers, which one to go for, how to write an inquiry letter. The fact that you go to one they tell you to go to the other and vice-versa. Or on the website, it says send your name a bit about you, and that’s it, but then in an email, they question why you didn’t send them more information. (Well it’s because your website said don’t send anything other than your name,) When this happens I want to reply with, please update your website I'm not a mind reader, but I do reframe myself from that, and instead, I choose not to respond and move on to the next person to send my manuscript to.
Nobody tells you about the time you spend editing your own work, having no clue what you are doing because going to a professional editor is beyond expensive and the little knowledge you have you hope is enough to get you through your entire manuscript. Though this does have its upsides, you get to be as free as you want and you decide what to delete and what to keep baring mind you know the path you want the story to take. You never got told that sitting down at your computer, laptop or notepad how physically and mentally demanding it is, I wouldn't change it for the world but had I been told this I would have prepared myself more for what to expect and how to handle the emotions you get from writing.
Nobody told me that it takes time for your book to become published (three years on and still working away at getting published.) Its hard when you don't have a team behind you, or you aren't known, you don't just come up with the idea and its already deemed to become the next best seller. (In no way am I getting at anybody who this has happened to. I'm happy they have maybe full filled a life dream, but for your everyday person, I'm saying this doesn't always happen. So please don't get any ideas or think that this happens regularly because even those people still had to work hard to get known and have a team behind them first.)
Nobody told me it takes time going to publishers, agents and anybody who is in the book world with countless no replies or not this time or this isn't what we are looking for and the keep trying, but not having an end in sight. I do often wonder would it be easier if I started a YouTube channel, would I get seen quicker would I have an audience before I have published books but I honestly don't know, the fact is I wouldn't know what to say if I sat in front of a camera.
You don't hear about the times where you have nothing to write, but you have to keep writing, that's one reason why I'm so slack at the blogging because a lot of the time I'd rather not write anything than writing a load of rubbish. Its the same with writing books but at least I find with that I can go over it later and edit out the bad bits. I do however find writing calming, the quicker I type, the more calming it is. But when your ideas leave you it can be the most frustrating thing, and when that sometimes happens at weeks on end you do start to panic and think what if this happens when I have a publisher or an agent or both behind me, and they are asking for my work. I guess in that situation you just have to make it work you have to make the words flow even if they aren't there. That is one challenge I look forward to and am scared of having it happen.
Nobody told me that you’d randomly wake up at three am one morning not knowing what to do or where you’re going because for the past four years or so you’ve had no idea where you’re going apart from hoping that soon you get the email back that you are wanting.
Nobody told me that you suddenly get a feeling that life is slipping by, you're working towards a dream that you don't know if you can make happen. You know nobody in the industry you are trying to get into yet you keep going into the unknown. Its hard, it's scary, and over the past couple of weeks, I've silently started to find a shell to crawl into merely, so I don't have to pretend to not be scared of the future I know I want and am currently working towards having. It's hard when 90% of the time you are an introvert and could quite happily live in the realms of four walls but at the same time want to be an extrovert to push yourself up to where you know you need to be.
Nobody told me that you’d get this new found fear of the thought of your book no longer just being yours, but everybody's, the idea of criticism tearing you up even when you are nowhere near being at that stage in your writing career. This for me is something I think about daily, I at times am without a doubt my own worst critic so there are no words that anyone could say to me that is worse than what I say to myself, but hearing them from someone else will always affect you in a way your own words don't. So hearing anything negative about my work scars me but I know everybody has an opinion, I might not agree with it but they deserve to have one, and i can hand on heart respect it. I also know I can't please everyone, and I don't want to, I feel like pleasing everyone would be hard in itself. I hope that by the time I become an author I can learn to take it all on the chin as if they are criticising your work it at least means that is one extra person who has read it. I also can't wait for the lovely people who tell me they couldn't put down my book or how much they cried or that they felt something they could connect with because then I will know I have done everything right that I wanted to do.
Nobody told me how confusing it would be or how you get advice, but it isn't the advice you need, (don't worry I'm not going to just randomly stop drinking water) something I got told at the start of my writing journey. It's something I already knew as I already drank a fair bit of water during the day so drinking more wasn't going to change anything apart from the number of times I'd need to go to the loo.
So if you are as new to this as me or you've just started or even been writing for longer but have never been told any of this, then I’m here to say it isn’t easy. These feelings I'm feeling I’m not used to, and if you are feeling them too then, you're not alone. I know I need to carry on and make them help me with my writing, I can get past these hurdles and these fears to better my work to make me become the best writer I know I can be and of course any of you. I want to be a published author I want to push myself and get past all the hurdles. I want to get my books published, and I will I don’t know when and I don’t know how but I will. Having said that waking up at 3 and simply just scrolling through Twitter has been extremely calming and was something I didn't realise I needed to do (I did this on Friday morning, and I felt so much better for it, though come Saturday I was a lot more tired.)
Nobody told me your brain never switches off from writing I figured this out back in high school when I would wake up with ideas and had to write them down, I used to be tired on those days at school, but I couldn't help my brain not being quiet at night. It still isn't quiet, but I've learnt to turn off from writing long before I go to bed. I feel that this typically helps my brain, though it still likes to trip me up sometimes and gives me a paragraph or two that I have to get written before I can even think about switching off, even then I can't stop thinking about what I've just written.
So please be wary of continually needing to be somewhere where you can write. I've had holidays with the family and with friends where I've started not being able to wait to get back to writing, not because I'm not having a good time, I am. It's just that I go a week or two without writing and I feel like I'm losing a part of me, this to me is what living and breathing writing means once you get this far in there is no going back to a life without it.
Now for some advice, that to me would have been helpful had I been given it, this is for anyone just starting out with writing. Don't let the hard work freak you out, don't let the not knowing where you are going be where you stop. Yes it's hard, but you have moments of breakthroughs, you have moments of not knowing what you could achieve. Unlike the advice, I got of drinking more water my advice to you is write. Write when you don't want to, when you have no ideas, write when everything and everyone is telling you to stop. Yes drinking water is essential so is sleep but if you don't push yourself and write when it feels like everything is against you, you won't know how to become a better writer without having some days where you have nothing to write. I know I'm not published I know I'm not an author, but if I had read something like this at the beginning of my writing journey. I wouldn't have needed to have started writing this at four am, and not knowing where I'm going or what I'm doing or how to get to where I want to be. Because the days keep on passing, and I have four years of work and feel like I have nothing to show for it because I honestly have no idea how to get to where I want to be. I know I keep saying its hard and it is. It isn't just sitting behind a screen and writing it's creating a whole other world of people and problems and lives that are happening all in your head. It's not only your own life, but the characters you are writing about; I know that won't make sense to a lot of people, but to the ones, it does you know you are writers.
If you've read this far, thank you and if you are like me struggling, not knowing where to go and (have woken up because you feel so lost) you're not alone we can help each other find our way in this crazy confusing, wonderful writing world!
As always thank you for reading I hope you have a lovely day
Love always Thinking out loud xx :D
