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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!

If you’re a writer, who is your audience, who or what are you writing for? Writing for yourself is fine, and I’m sure for most writers, we might consider ourselves to be our first, and even main, audience.

But with our words, we have a mighty tool, words can change minds, can strengthen commitments, can bring about good things being done!

Do you have something that you feel passionately about, but are saddened because we feel you’re too small to do anything about it? Well you’re not too small, You have a voice, and your pen is mightier than the sword – so use it for good purposes!

Local papers accept letters to the editor, and will sometimes also accept well written articles – get the facts, and quotes from the experts, and tell your community all about what you’re passionate about, that you feel needs something done.

Gather your community to your cause, and you CAN make changes for the better! One person, with a crowd of like-minded others and with a voice, and the power to vote, you will become so much more than just one person!

Causes are never going to be made better if no-one ever comes to their aid. Whether your cause is climate change, a debilitating illness, disadvantaged school children, habitat for disappearing wild life, or something else, if you care about it, tell people about it, use your words to make others care too!

I have Multiple Sclerosis, and I have written about this illness, how it affects me, and others, and I have done fundraising for the MS Society SA & NT as well. With my words I’ve written about how it is for me, and how others manage with it as well, and so raising awareness.

Awareness is a tool to use to bring this issue closer to the minds of people, whether medical people, potential employers, those suffering with the illness, and the general public. Increase understanding can and will lead to greater understanding, and so life can get better in many ways.

One thing people may not understand, can lead to actions taken that affect the afflicted person, where if the general public were aware, they would not take those actions. One thing could be healthy people using car parks set aside for those with a disability.

They may only be using it ‘for a couple of minutes’, but that may mean the disabled person will have to park far from the entrance, or not even being able to find a park at all. Ignorance, is no excuse. If you’re not disabled, lucky you, make the most of your abilities, and walk!

If you’re walking your dog, and it has to answer the call of Nature, pick up afterwards, or else dogs may end up being banned from public places! I pick up after my dog, not my favorite thing to do, but I’m a responsible dog owner, as all dog owners should be!

I hope by writing about poop, I encourage others to also do the right thing!

Do you wish you had the time to do the writing you want to do, but can’t, because things keep on happening, and stop you from being able to settle in and get that writing done?

Yeah, life, it just gets in the way like that doesn’t it? Or is it you lack of focus and inability to make time for the writing? I confess, I let life get in the way of my writing far more often than I should.

LIFE:
Visitors,
television,
eating,
shopping,
going to meetings.

Only one of these things will lead to more writing getting done, the rest are things that get in the way of my writing, that I supposedly really want to do.

I just don’t want it hard enough, obviously, because if it was really so important to me, I’d get on and do it! Does this sound like your life sometimes too? If you have any tricks to stay with the so called important writing I’d love to hear what works for you!

As I indicated, one of the things on my list will in fact lead to more writing getting done. That thing is going to meetings. But that only works if the meeting is the ones I have in Gawler every Thursday afternoon, my writing group meeting.

At our meeting, we report on the writing related things we’d done in the week past, and we read our homework, which will be a response to a writing prompt. And then at the meeting, we will do a writing exercise, which will involve responding to another writing prompt.

At our writing group meetings, we try to keep away from the boring ordinary day to day fluff and guff, and stick with writing related news, because we are writers/poets/bloggers, and our writing is important enough to us to get on and do it, at the group meetings, and with the homework to present there too.

If I wasn’t a member of this great group, I might not get anywhere near as much writing done, and I definitely suggest getting involved with such a group, if you want to begin to take your own writing more seriously, at least for the writing group meeting anyway. And if you can’t find such a meeting, do what I did, start a writing group, and hold the meeting yourself.

Sometimes at the beginning there were very few people there, and in fact sometimes I was the only one there, but writing always got done. Because that’s what writing groups are for, writing!

Make your Writing Group get in the way of Life for a change!

But of course, life is what gives you things to think about, and write about. The trick as I see it, is to think on life, get ideas and thoughts happening in your head, and then you’ll have a broader range of things to write about!

The image below is of my most recent poetry collection, where I touch on many of the things I’ve thought about in response to my lived life!

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