Writing, For More Than Fun

This popped up on my Facebook page today, as a reminder of this day last year. At the time, I was into my second attempt at posting for #NaBloPoMo – which I managed to complete – although I admit to doing a few pieces that I regard as fillers to get through it. That’s why I vowed then never to do it again.

This was the companion piece to something I wrote the week before – there’s a clickable link in the article if you want to see that. As around half of you following this blog have joined since I wrote this, I think it a good bet that you won’t have seen it before. What interests me about it isn’t just the dream I shared, and which I still have, but at what the passing of a year has meant for this.

I said then that I had a lot of work to do to get myself into a position to publish anything. I was right! I’ve done all of the boring preparatory stuff, and am part way through a massive editing job – which is turning out to be a much bigger task than I could ever have imagined.

I’ve had spells in the past year where illness has got the better of me for several weeks at a time, and following which I’ve had to stir up the energy and interest to carry on with the task, but I’m driven by my goal and don’t want to give up on it.

The real eye-opener for me has been the sheer amount of work involved in putting a book together, and not just in the actual writing of the words. Many of you are authors yourselves, mostly of the self-published/indie variety, and I really do applaud you for what you have achieved. Some of you work to deadlines, and I admire you for achieving them. But they aren’t for me: my aim to have a stress-free retired life means that I will do this when I’m good and ready, not before! I don’t think the world will fall off its axis if I don’t produce anything by any particular date.

I’ll keep going at my own pace, and if and when I finally achieve my goal you’ll be the first to hear, I promise!

Take It Easy

Last week, I wrote about why I write and what I and, I imagine, other bloggers aim to get out of doing this. The post generated a fair degree of interest, and has today been featured in the Blogging and Tech section of the Post-40 Bloggers website. I guess I must have said a few things that others recognised! The responses and subsequent conversations have got me thinking about my longstanding ambitions to do more with my writing. Blogging is great, don’t get me wrong, but being told that you write well – by someone who knows what they are talking about – is a huge encouragement to take it to the next level, to take some tentative bigger steps. For some time I have had an idea for something I want to do, and have been thinking about it much more in the last week.

Thank you!

In…

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