New blog, first post. Where shall I start! Perhaps to say that I never had the slightest intention of being a writer but that it is something which has sort of happened along the way. Now I am hooked and must write. If I don't, then I get miserable!
I had my first outpouring of writing at 40. Went on a long distance foot path walk in the UK when it was not the done thing for women to do such things. Got back home. "What to do now?" was my thinking. Message came into my head from Upstairs Crew: write about the walk. Crikey that was hard. Took a year. Off to publishers. Rejected. Filed book away. Never was going to write again.
A while later, and I sort of 'sicked up' the start of a novel. A spooky one of all things. Did a few pages. Put that away as felt intimidated about the project. A few pages of another book popped into my mind. This was a funny one. Made me laugh as I wrote it. Put that away as well, mostly because of my chaotic personal life and my hectic psychic development pathway.
Onto a Writers Workshop. Loads of writing experience got here. Had to learn how to write 200 word, 500 word or even 50 word stories. Great door opener for me. Stopped though after a while because of what my life was getting up to.
And so it came to be my early fifties. Coming out of a 'reading' (I channel help and guidance from the Upstairs Crew to people whose lives are in a jumble) the words "Your first book will be about yourself" was spoken into my head. Quite a surprise that was. And "Not likely" was my response back. Not for one minute was I ever going to write about myself. I didn't consider myself interesting enough, neither was I particularly fussed about going back into my past history, and anyway, who was going to be bothered to read it, what benefit would they get from it. So I binned the message. I was not going to write out myself.
However, the thought would bubble to the surface now and again. It would not be let go. So I pondered upon a possible title. "Perhaps 'The Reluctant Medium' would be the best one", I thought, because I never expected to become a psychic craftswoman in the first place, so IF I was ever going to write about myself then that is what the title of the book would be.
So I came to my 59th birthday. Out walking my dog in the local woods, and it came to me that I really needed to get the thing written and out of the way. I had loads of other book titles now in the pipeline, all given to me at odd moments from the Upstairs Crew, and I was longing to get onto writing them. This first book was blocking my way to those other books.
SInce I was going to be 60 the following year, it seemed a good time to do this task.
And so I started. But where to start! All of my past was a tangled pile of memories. Where to pick up the threads of those memories, that was my first task. So I made a huge chart, writing down the years from when I was first born to now. Then I started filling in those years. Not easy, as I realised the book was going to be double stranded: how I got to become a psychic after never expecting to be one, and how I finally got to meet and be successful with my soul partner after thinking I never would.
Having to sift out those memories was painful sometimes. Revisiting times which I thought had been dumped on the 'out pile' was hard. And often wondering how the hell I managed to cope with all that was happening.
The book started to read like a 'I did this, and then that, and this happened'. No-one was ever going to find this interesting. Still, I had had that message to write about my life so that is what I kept to.
Came to one evening, having finally managed 30, 000 words, and I thought I would look on Amazon to see if the title had already been taken. It had. Which gave me permission to promptly terminate the project. Obviously the Upstairs Crew had been playing games with me. And with relief I grabbed at the chance to bin the project.
Next morning: Onto my PC to do a trawl over the Internet to find a knitting wool provider, and bang! Crashing into my head came the words: Psychic Virgin. Oh crikey, crikey, crikey! With absolute certainty I knew that this was the book title. That the book was still ongoing. Oh crikey, crikey, crikey! And now all of those 30,000 words had to be dumped because they didn't fit the title and I had to start again. Weeks of work. All dumped.
And that new title, which I was shy about saying out loud even to myself let alone other people, gave me an Everest of a challenge. Two years it took me, during which I learnt how to write a book. How sit through those long hours when there was nothing in my head. How to enjoy the creative flow when the words were outpouring. How to be patient with hidden memories were being revisited. How to create an interesting narrative: not to be too miserable when writing about the difficult times, but to find something funny to break the mood of the writing up. How to make the page look interesting without cramming the page with too much text. Breaking rules of grammar when necessary, but keeping to them most of the time. Not repeating myself to often. FInding different ways of saying the same thing to make the stop 'reading boredom' creeping in. Keeping the theme of the book going, meanwhile intertwining the two separate elements of personal and psychic. How to be patient as the words built up and up and up, finally to 120,000 words.
And then the long process of re-writes, ruthlessly cutting out that which was irrelevant. Chunks were cut, some of which have gone in to other books in what has now become a series of five books. I got the final tally of words down to 100,000 words.
A publisher said they would take it if I cut it down to 60,000 words. This was not do-able because then the book wouldn't make sense. I would have to have taken out one half of the two themes of the book, and that would have lost the reason why it was written in the first place. So I left the book alone for a while. Moved to France.
And then it was time to get it back out again, and self publishing became the option I took. And another Everest sized challenge as I grappled with learning how to format a book, to make the pages look reasonably professional. Then how to design a book cover. Then getting the book back from Lulu (the self publishing company I used) and seeing it in the flesh.
So I put it away again. For a while. When I felt brave enough I started to read Psychic Virgin and the curious thing was that it didn't feel like I had written it at all but that someone else had! However I was still the one who had to go through it thoroughly to do some more tidying up and re-edits. Three times I have had to go through this process. Now it is done.
I am sure that a professional publisher would find loads of errors, but I have done my best. This is a 'cottage industry' book and as such will have parts in it which aren't quite right.
But most of all, writing it has truly opened the writing pathway. I have learnt how to write and how to self publish, and I am quite proud of myself for uptaking these challenges.
And I started this blog off to hopefully inspire others to have a go themselves. Not to boast about having written a book. Not to hope that people will buy the book. Not to flaunt myself as being better than anyone else. No, the reason why this book was written and why I have started this blog is to act as inspiration to others who might be thinking of doing the same.
I had my first outpouring of writing at 40. Went on a long distance foot path walk in the UK when it was not the done thing for women to do such things. Got back home. "What to do now?" was my thinking. Message came into my head from Upstairs Crew: write about the walk. Crikey that was hard. Took a year. Off to publishers. Rejected. Filed book away. Never was going to write again.
A while later, and I sort of 'sicked up' the start of a novel. A spooky one of all things. Did a few pages. Put that away as felt intimidated about the project. A few pages of another book popped into my mind. This was a funny one. Made me laugh as I wrote it. Put that away as well, mostly because of my chaotic personal life and my hectic psychic development pathway.
Onto a Writers Workshop. Loads of writing experience got here. Had to learn how to write 200 word, 500 word or even 50 word stories. Great door opener for me. Stopped though after a while because of what my life was getting up to.
And so it came to be my early fifties. Coming out of a 'reading' (I channel help and guidance from the Upstairs Crew to people whose lives are in a jumble) the words "Your first book will be about yourself" was spoken into my head. Quite a surprise that was. And "Not likely" was my response back. Not for one minute was I ever going to write about myself. I didn't consider myself interesting enough, neither was I particularly fussed about going back into my past history, and anyway, who was going to be bothered to read it, what benefit would they get from it. So I binned the message. I was not going to write out myself.
However, the thought would bubble to the surface now and again. It would not be let go. So I pondered upon a possible title. "Perhaps 'The Reluctant Medium' would be the best one", I thought, because I never expected to become a psychic craftswoman in the first place, so IF I was ever going to write about myself then that is what the title of the book would be.
So I came to my 59th birthday. Out walking my dog in the local woods, and it came to me that I really needed to get the thing written and out of the way. I had loads of other book titles now in the pipeline, all given to me at odd moments from the Upstairs Crew, and I was longing to get onto writing them. This first book was blocking my way to those other books.
SInce I was going to be 60 the following year, it seemed a good time to do this task.
And so I started. But where to start! All of my past was a tangled pile of memories. Where to pick up the threads of those memories, that was my first task. So I made a huge chart, writing down the years from when I was first born to now. Then I started filling in those years. Not easy, as I realised the book was going to be double stranded: how I got to become a psychic after never expecting to be one, and how I finally got to meet and be successful with my soul partner after thinking I never would.
Having to sift out those memories was painful sometimes. Revisiting times which I thought had been dumped on the 'out pile' was hard. And often wondering how the hell I managed to cope with all that was happening.
The book started to read like a 'I did this, and then that, and this happened'. No-one was ever going to find this interesting. Still, I had had that message to write about my life so that is what I kept to.
Came to one evening, having finally managed 30, 000 words, and I thought I would look on Amazon to see if the title had already been taken. It had. Which gave me permission to promptly terminate the project. Obviously the Upstairs Crew had been playing games with me. And with relief I grabbed at the chance to bin the project.
Next morning: Onto my PC to do a trawl over the Internet to find a knitting wool provider, and bang! Crashing into my head came the words: Psychic Virgin. Oh crikey, crikey, crikey! With absolute certainty I knew that this was the book title. That the book was still ongoing. Oh crikey, crikey, crikey! And now all of those 30,000 words had to be dumped because they didn't fit the title and I had to start again. Weeks of work. All dumped.
And that new title, which I was shy about saying out loud even to myself let alone other people, gave me an Everest of a challenge. Two years it took me, during which I learnt how to write a book. How sit through those long hours when there was nothing in my head. How to enjoy the creative flow when the words were outpouring. How to be patient with hidden memories were being revisited. How to create an interesting narrative: not to be too miserable when writing about the difficult times, but to find something funny to break the mood of the writing up. How to make the page look interesting without cramming the page with too much text. Breaking rules of grammar when necessary, but keeping to them most of the time. Not repeating myself to often. FInding different ways of saying the same thing to make the stop 'reading boredom' creeping in. Keeping the theme of the book going, meanwhile intertwining the two separate elements of personal and psychic. How to be patient as the words built up and up and up, finally to 120,000 words.
And then the long process of re-writes, ruthlessly cutting out that which was irrelevant. Chunks were cut, some of which have gone in to other books in what has now become a series of five books. I got the final tally of words down to 100,000 words.
A publisher said they would take it if I cut it down to 60,000 words. This was not do-able because then the book wouldn't make sense. I would have to have taken out one half of the two themes of the book, and that would have lost the reason why it was written in the first place. So I left the book alone for a while. Moved to France.
And then it was time to get it back out again, and self publishing became the option I took. And another Everest sized challenge as I grappled with learning how to format a book, to make the pages look reasonably professional. Then how to design a book cover. Then getting the book back from Lulu (the self publishing company I used) and seeing it in the flesh.
So I put it away again. For a while. When I felt brave enough I started to read Psychic Virgin and the curious thing was that it didn't feel like I had written it at all but that someone else had! However I was still the one who had to go through it thoroughly to do some more tidying up and re-edits. Three times I have had to go through this process. Now it is done.
I am sure that a professional publisher would find loads of errors, but I have done my best. This is a 'cottage industry' book and as such will have parts in it which aren't quite right.
But most of all, writing it has truly opened the writing pathway. I have learnt how to write and how to self publish, and I am quite proud of myself for uptaking these challenges.
And I started this blog off to hopefully inspire others to have a go themselves. Not to boast about having written a book. Not to hope that people will buy the book. Not to flaunt myself as being better than anyone else. No, the reason why this book was written and why I have started this blog is to act as inspiration to others who might be thinking of doing the same.
Congratulations, Vera! Your new blog is beautiful and it is wonderful to read about the process you went through. I find it inspiring and I know others will too! Keep writing! You are a treasure :)
ReplyDeleteI am honored to be your first follower! Woot! :))
Thankyou so much, Kelly, and I am just as honoured to have you as my first!
ReplyDelete