My guest today is the ever-inspiring Isabel Murray, who despite all the obstacles she faced somehow just couldn’t stop herself from writing. Over to you, Isabel.
All those blogs and posts about maintaining the discipline to write, to carve out the time, to find the time, to make the time. Interesting really, that I, who have no financial incentive or requirement have always written stories from school onwards (in bursts) but never gained enough confidence to do anything with it. Couldn’t possibly be good enough, not enough brain intelligence, no A levels, no university, no literati job experience. Where, oh where, did this burden of ‘not good enough’ therefore ‘shouldn’t even try’ come from? My generation? I am 72, my husband is 80, and the residual idea of ‘achievement is for others’ has trickled through.
I no longer have young children, and the grandchildren are all teenagers. I no longer black out from the exhaustion of lack of sleep. But still the days are filled with family, charities, travel, meetings, church rotas, paperwork, computer work, washing, ironing, cleaning, chauffeuring, sporting attendances, hospital driving, community activities and on and on and on. You younger writers can double all that, go to work and back, and add the exhaustion on top.
So if you can do it, I have to tell myself, I can do it. It is a miracle that anyone writes a book, let alone a series, and makes a business out of it. And also manage to read books, of course. I admire you all. I REALLY admire you.
So when do I write?
In the dark, when I should be sleeping, my head goes round and round. Story hardens, plot thickens. I leap vertical, turn the light on, scribble it down before forgetting. (Husband snores, and I have banished myself to the spare bedroom, where I can turn the light on with impunity.)
Between 6 and 7 am—sometimes earlier—I often wake with the editing/storyline/plot holes screaming for attention. Somewhere, down the mists of time, I acquired a hideous hospital table. The sort that has a single metal L-shaped leg which slides under the bed. I also have an Adjustamatic bed (is that illegal advertising?) for a back problem long since mended.
I am raised electronically to sitting position (admittedly with my legs straight out in front of me), the laptop is on my hospital table. I have been to the loo, got myself the first of many cups of coffee, and am warm. These three things are essential to life, to well-being and to writing.
I get at least two hours of writing/editing done, at least three days a week. Often more. Bite my hand off, young writing parents. No children, no telephone (well, if anyone does they get a dusty answer), and my good-natured husband will answer the doorbell, as I am embarrassed to be still in my dressing-gown. I eat to live, not live to eat, so the unfortunate husband who is the other way round, gets short shrift. Lucky to have one cooked meal, but the other meal is shop soup in winter, and cold ham and salad in summer. He does not come from a generation of cooking husbands, but perforce can and has to.
Some days are a complete right-off. Write-off? From early morning till evening I may be out doing some or all of the things listed above. So what, I hear the young ones say, that’s what you do when you have a job, and we still write. Quite so.
Some days I have managed to squeeze life into an a.m. or a p.m which means I can have a writing chunk in the alternative a.m. or p.m.
Most days I manage to write or edit until about 8 pm when I stop to be nice to the husband, watch TV for an hour, then the news. Then BED.
Some days (I like to be mentally quite organised) I get irritated by forgetting what colour his eyes are, and if she is left or right handed, so I spend time on Excel doing a spread sheet of names, birth and death dates, hair, eyes, quirks, etc. and then a couple of hours shrieking at the printer which cannot be found and has gone offline and nothing can be written or edited until the b…… thing has been wrestled under control again. Oh, and the black cartridge has run out, so I’m printing in blue again ….
Last week I happened (yes, happened) to notice that Book One’s romantic lady had the same surname, or half of it, as the romantic man in Book Two. The first book is published and therefore unchangeable, the second book hinges on this name and is therefore unchangeable. I can only thank God that they are not a ‘series’. This is the sort of angst, and amateurishness, that prevents this writer from writing for at least a day. The other problem is getting into a good book that I can’t put down.
So, dear writing friends, each of us comes from a different writing direction. Some have deadlines, some will only eat if they write, some think it’s a doddle (they are surely not successful and never will be), some, like me, are so appalled at the marketing implications that they almost give up.
You may listen to what I say, but don’t do what I do. Perhaps you may be comforted by my chaotic writing habits, but all the advice—and I don’t do advice—is to be disciplined, to write every day, to give yourself a word goal (even if it’s only 500 words) and a zillion other bullet points.
I read all the blogs, though, and sigh.
You can find Isabel’s book written under her pen name here:
http://amzn.eu/0OjJiy8
Dolphin Days by Charlotte Milne
In the US
http://a.co/75x1G3J