In writing, as in life, gaining encouragement is an important thing to help a person keep going. Of course, we must encourage ourselves too, because the internal messages we tell ourselves can be crippling, and easily kill off an idea, no matter how good it is.
So I say thank you, to the people who have let me know they’re following along with the progress in my Cosy Murder Mystery novel, the first in the proposed “At Talloola” series with amateur sleuth Meredith Webster. Having you with me, as I work my way through this first book is certainly greatly helping me!
Books take time, particularly when a writer is used to writing poems, and is accustomed to being able to get a poem written, edited, and done within a day, when it goes well. A novel, no matter how good it’s going, is going to take at least a month.
Anyway, thanks, and I can promise you, a novel will happen. By the end of 2021, Winds of Death At Talloola, will be written, and if not published, at least available to be read in pre-published form.
As a so-called ‘novelist’ I am not writing my current novel every day. I’m not even writing more of it every second day … Life, as the title suggests, is a pest, and gets in the way of my novel writing. But life is certainly a pleasure too, and it gives me things to write about.
Any kind of writing is useful for a novelist, or wannabee one, which is a more truthful title for me, I’d think. I have part of a novel written, a third of it, and that’s it. So I am a wannabee novelist, or I could say I have a novel in (slow) progress. I am only human, and being only human is a good thing to be, for a novelist, because of course, humans, that’s what I must write about.
Whether my characters are aliens, dogs, or cows, they are really humans in another form. In my novel, there are definitely humans. The dogs in the story are dogs, not humans, although I can only give my human interpretation on what the dogs may be thinking, or with the reasons for what they are doing …
Anyway, life, that is the main reason for the slow progression of my novel-in-progress. Or really, to be truthful, I suspect the desire isn’t strong enough to break through, and I allow the bits and bobs of life interfere, and I do those rather than settling down to write more of the novel. Am I lazy, or am I just easily distracted?
Hmm possibly yes to both of those things, at times anyway. Or it may be I am afraid that I can’t actually write this proposed book, a Cosy Murder Mystery, a genre I haven’t written in before, until I came up with this idea for a series of such novels. Since then, I have written several short stories using some of the characters I’ve come up with, and using the same setting too.
I like these people/characters, and I like the town I’ve come up with. It’s fun writing about them, I just can’t get stuck right into getting this novel written. I have people who want to read this first novel, and I don’t want to let them down, but by not getting the first book written, of course I am letting them down, and I’m letting myself down too.
Boo hoo to that, poor me … But by confessing to my ‘sins’ regarding this, can I maybe shame myself into just getting the writing happening again. Well no, I doubt that is the way I should go, I need to be happy to be writing the best book I can, and I know when I do actually get some more of this novel written, I enjoy doing the writing.
And of course, I do have other things I have to do, and today, earlier, I was working on the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle, which is a newsletter I put together and publish every month. This newsletter and producing it, are things I am rightly proud of, I have been told many times by those I respect it is a good newsletter for the town of Mallala.
And I live in my house with others, my husband and our dog, and both have things they need from me, if I am to be a good member of the household, which of course I want to be. Because, as the headline for this blog post indicates, life is a pleasure as well as a pest. And being a good person is a huge pleasure, whereas being a good novelist is an unknown possible pleasure …
One of my reasons for wanting this Cosy Murder Mystery novel to work is because I like the idea of being well known as the writer of such a series. But of course without even having the first book written, I can’t be famous for writing such a series. And as I’m typing these words, I’m aware of the other things I want and/or need to get done today … Pest or pleasure, life and living have needs, chores, fun things, and responsibilities.
That is enough self-analysis, time to get back to one of my other things I need to do, and there will be a pleasure there too, as I’ll be getting myself another cup of coffee, to help me get on with the December issue of the Mallala Crossroad Chronicle … I’ve done the front cover, and many of the other pages are in their proper place, and it’s looking good, with Santa and the local Mallala Lion members from their recent Christmas dinner.
And on that note, I offer my readers greetings of the season, stay safe, stay well, and have a fine time!
Carolyn Cordon - Creative 