New Year, New Plans!
With the New Year comes alternative plans. After a disorganised and unmotivating 2020, I’ve decided to change things up. My current work in progress, with the working title ‘Demiwood Academy’, is coming along well. I spent the last few months of last year writing a plan for all three books in the new series along with starting the first book. I am currently editing with my trusty red pen while simultaneously writing book two… we shall see how this works. But it’s a change, so I’ll give it ago.
At the end of last year, I was also diagnosed with Dyslexia, which at twenty-eight came as a bit of a shock. For anyone who read the first edition of book one, I don’t need to tell you that the grammar wasn’t brilliant. Despite several rounds of edits, I still couldn’t see what everyone else saw so clearly. The blatantly confused words. Missed words or downright poor punctuation. And despite reading as many grammar and editing books as I could get my hands on, I have always struggled in this department. Years of assuming that I just wasn’t trying hard enough, so spending hours correcting my work, only to find the same mistakes at a later stage was taking its toll on me. I stopped writing. I stopped marketing my books in case someone else saw how awful they were. I very nearly deleted them. My first novels had gone from being a source of great pride to being a badge of shame. This perceived failure, along with going back to studying, prompted me to investigate the possibility that maybe it was me. The diagnosis, while shocking, kind of felt like a relief. Not that I wasn’t smart enough, or I hadn’t tried as hard as everyone else; my brain doesn’t work like everyone else’s. And that’s okay.
The advantage to finally admitting I may need help is that I have realised there are a plethora of resources available for those who need support. As an avid reader, of course, books were my go-to. I can’t think of any issue I have ever had that I didn’t first read a book to find a solution. From writing to toddler sleep problems and now Dyslexia support. Books have helped. And I’m not just talking about non-fiction. Plenty of fiction books have changed the way I have dealt with a crisis.
It is this thought that has kept me writing and the reason I have decided to disclose that I have Dyslexia. I have had some of the sweetest reviews written about my books by people who loved the story. Maybe someone read one of my books during their own crisis, I don’t know. But what I do know is that books have the ability to make people feel they aren’t quiet as alone as they thought. To inspire. To make you feel something. Even, in my case, to help solve troublesome problems.
Being Dyslexic (and having a very bored two-year-old during a lockdown) means I will struggle to write and edit a book a month, which had been my original plan when I first started writing. I still have 100’s of online plots (I wish I was exaggerating this, but I’m not) sitting in notebooks and an on my computer. I could write for a lifetime and still not finish all of those potential books. But again, that’s okay too. If this last year has taught us anything, its that we are sometimes very harsh on ourselves when we needn’t be.
Focussing on telling a few fantastic stories that are well plotted is going to make me far prouder than producing 100 mediocre books. So I have planned to rapidly release all three books very close together. It may take me months to get around to finishing them to the high standard I want, which wouldn’t be fair to those who start reading book one. But don’t worry, I will still share teasers and character info. You’ll be so invested in these characters by the time the books come out that I’m sure some of you will consider them close friends. I am joking, of course, but that’s an aim!
So if you have got to the end of this post, which had originally been a planning post, well done. I’ve now shared enough about myself that you’ll probably never want to hear from me again. But if you still do, I thought I’d end on a positive note.
As David Allen once said: “I can do anything, but I can’t do everything.” That’s the thought I am going to keep in head as I keep plodding away with my writing and I hope that might offer you something to think about next time you get overwhelmed. I have this stuck on my wall in front of my desk and remind myself of this daily.
Until next time!