What Happens Next?
To have a good idea for a novel or short story is a good start but where do you go from there?
It is a scary prospect, to put pen to paper or more likely these days, fingers to key board. It can be terrifying but it shouldn’t be as you can always make corrections. With a computer it is so much easier to move sections around, or take out bits but still keep them in case you what to use them later.
In my school days everything was on paper so you couldn’t hide your thinking so easily. I am dyslexic but didn’t find out about this until I was 19 and had given up on schooling because of the hard time I had got from my teachers. So, when I had my first great idea for a book, I could hear my teachers voices in my head scornfully saying, “Do you think YOU can write a book?
I remember all the red ink on my essays and stories pointing out all my spelling and gramma errors, but I also remember the comments about my good plots and interesting characters. Its funny how you focus on the negatives people throw at you and not the positives. I lost my confidence because I was told so many times that I was lazy or not trying hard enough when I was and this is stays with me.. Unless you have dyslexia, it is hard to explain what it is like and there are many forms of it too. So, as I started to write these voices began to return and scared me off writing for a while but then I thought, “What’s the worse that can happen? I’ll get two pages in and run out of steam? Thankfully this didn’t happen but it takes a lot of effort, persistence and faith in yourself to make it to the end of your manuscript.
It’s a long road to travel and often a lonely trip too but its worth it.
Some notes on developing your characters next time.
To have a good idea for a novel or short story is a good start but where do you go from there?
It is a scary prospect, to put pen to paper or more likely these days, fingers to key board. It can be terrifying but it shouldn’t be as you can always make corrections. With a computer it is so much easier to move sections around, or take out bits but still keep them in case you what to use them later.
In my school days everything was on paper so you couldn’t hide your thinking so easily. I am dyslexic but didn’t find out about this until I was 19 and had given up on schooling because of the hard time I had got from my teachers. So, when I had my first great idea for a book, I could hear my teachers voices in my head scornfully saying, “Do you think YOU can write a book?
I remember all the red ink on my essays and stories pointing out all my spelling and gramma errors, but I also remember the comments about my good plots and interesting characters. Its funny how you focus on the negatives people throw at you and not the positives. I lost my confidence because I was told so many times that I was lazy or not trying hard enough when I was and this is stays with me.. Unless you have dyslexia, it is hard to explain what it is like and there are many forms of it too. So, as I started to write these voices began to return and scared me off writing for a while but then I thought, “What’s the worse that can happen? I’ll get two pages in and run out of steam? Thankfully this didn’t happen but it takes a lot of effort, persistence and faith in yourself to make it to the end of your manuscript.
It’s a long road to travel and often a lonely trip too but its worth it.
Some notes on developing your characters next time.