I have always loved to write, ever since I was a little girl. There was always something very exciting about putting pen to paper and creating a new adventure, or new characters, or a new place for my ideas to take flight. As a result, I was always pestering my parents to buy me a new notebook, or exercise book, or scrapbook. Because I was never sure as to what I would actually create between the pages, I would confidently name each new acquisition my "Anything Book." I would design a cover and fill the first couple of pages, but that was always as far as I would get. Once I had actually made a start, I would become overwhelmed with the enormity of actually filling an entire book with my ideas. As I grew older, it became a joke amongst the members of my family when an old "anything book" was discovered in a clean-up.
As an adult, I have kept a journal haphazardly. I have some years documented reasonably well, while others have suffered the fate of my old anything books. Similarly, 'writing ideas journals' have been begun enthusiastically and left to languish in the bottom of drawers. Yet whenever I go into Officeworks or somewhere similar, I am immediately drawn to the notebook aisle and gaze longingly at the blank books with designer covers. I even buy one occasionally. It was a great relief to me when my husband showed similar anything book tendencies early on in our relationship!
I am happy to say that keeping a journal is the only form of writing that I haven't been able to do consistently. I do write other things - often! Sometimes I even write other things that get published. Whatever I write though, I always suffer the same problem - making a start. Once I'm off and running, I'm fine.
And so, a blog! Surely this is merely the online version of a journal. Recently I have been reading some excellent blogs by creative souls and they have fired my inspiration anew. So I am joining them. I will try my hardest to ensure that this blog does not end up as an online anything book!
For the month of November, I am engaging in a slimline version of NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. (Google it. It's fascinating!) NaNoWriMo is a USA inspired project, whereby writers commit to writing 50 000 words in 30 days. It began with a very small number of participants and is now begun by millions (at least I think it is millions. It's certainly many thousands..) every November. You can buy t-shirts, join forums and print off congratulatory certificates if you pass the magic word count. I did this a few years ago and it was lots of fun. I managed to write a novel that was basically ok, with large amounts of awful prose added in order to make up the word count. But the main thing was, I turned up at the page (or screen). I wrote every day and created an entire story called "Pathways" without falling victim to "Anythingbook-itis" along the way. The sense of achievement was huge!
I am now a member of a couple of different online writing groups. Some of us have been talking about doing our own version of NaNoWriMo this year and so I decided that I would create this blog in order to post my daily entries. Starting tomorrow, I will begin writing "The Forgotten Children" with 2 characters known as Charlotte Todd and Troy Jamieson. There will also be a pet cat, called Sixpence. I got the title and character names from a story generator website and have no idea what will happen in the adventure yet...
I plan to post my entries onto this blog. Then, once it is done, I plan to continue this blog by writing about writing and anything else that takes my fancy. In that way, I hope to ban "Anythingbook-itis" forever!
That's all for now,
Susie
