As a writer, I have been getting my poems written and put ‘out there’ to the public reasonably well. I felt I had a handle on this ‘writing’ thing, and knew what I was doing.
But then I decided I wanted to write a novel, a series of novels in fact, and things are not travelling along so smoothly. Writing a poem is far more like going for a sprint, you train, and you settle down, and you write a poem, and can get it done in a very quick time, sometimes.
But as I’ve been learning, writing a novel is a much lengthier thing, much more like a marathon, than a sprint, for sure. But keeping going is the only way you can get the words written, in the first draft format, and then there is the editing of that messy first draft …
And after that, there may be more drafts and editing to come. Yes, I love the sprint of the poem – idea comes, words are written, edited, shared maybe, edited again perhaps, and all is done, all within a day or so, sometimes!
I have written a poem in ten minutes reasonably often, with my writing group. When we’re having our regular poetry reading, we always begin with a 5 word challenge, where we’ll ask our guest presenter/poet to give us 5 randomly chosen words from their latest book, or other writing they have available.
Then those present have ten minutes to write something – a piece of creative writing, which most people tend to use for a poem. These are then read out to those present, and the best is chosen, by that guest.
There is a prize for the best piece, a bottle of wine, donated by the venue we hold our event at, which is the Prince Albert Hotel. We are grateful to this hotel for this, and for allowing us to use their venue for our various writing group events.
I always take part in this challenge, but rarely win. I don’t mind, it’s the writing that interests me the most, and chances to write something new can always lead to the possibility of something bigger and better afterwards.
But as I’ve discovered, the writing of a novel is something that takes a much longer time! I have characters and I have a setting. I also have a book title, in fact I have I think twenty titles, for the series of books I want to write …
But the rate I’m going, I’ll be 100 by the time I get this first book written, let alone any more in the series! The novel I’m writing is a Cosy Murder Mystery, which can be somewhere around 75,000 words. I’m on around 42,000 words so far, but I’m feeling like I am a long way away from having a coherent narrative happening for this first novel in the series.
I need to settle on who the possible suspects are, so my main character can interview them, and I have to have something happen that changes everything around for that main character. and I have to throw in red herrings, and have my main character investigate them, and lots of other things as well …
Eventually, I need to have the main character solve red herrings, then the main mystery, and have the bad guy shown to be the villain.
See, a marathon, and definitely not a sprint. I’m hoping to get going and have more of this first Cosy Murder Mystery written soon, but life keeps getting in the way. Actually, the truth is, I keep letting life get in the way – if I was truly committed to this novel, I would ignore ‘life’ and just get on with the novel.
I’m certainly still thinking about this novel, in the back of my mind, and in the forefront of my mind too, at times. But it isn’t happening quickly, which isn’t surprising really, but I’m feeling it is frustrating, because I’m so used to the poetry I write, which happens so much faster …
Will I ever get on with this novel, and get it written? Who knows, not me. Perhaps I’ll never manage to write and have published my first Cosy Murder Mystery? Ah well, at least I can get the poetry written and published. Maybe I should settle down and be content with that?
Maybe, but I do so like the idea of being a Cosy Murder Mystery writer! The idea is much easier of the reality of it though, that’s for sure. If you have any tips and hints for getting a novel written, I’d love to hear what they are, just leave a comment telling me all about it!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 