After writing on and off for the past few years with some success I’ve decided that it’s time to take my writing more seriously. I’m not getting any younger and my unfinished masterpieces aren’t getting any more complete, so I’ve decided to take a positive step and move my writing to a new level.
If I’m going to take my writing seriously and hopefully dig out a new career for myself I really need to learn how. I mean I know how to tell a story and I have the basics of English and Grammar up to scratch but what about other things? I need to learn about writers discipline, how to separate my good ideas from the lame ones, how to develop an idea from plot bunny to full fledged novel.
All this dancing around my head I Found How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers. This is exactly what I want! I don’t just want to learn how to write I know that part backwards, what I need help with is how to make a career out of my writing. Rather then just being able to plug out a story when the mood is right I need to learn how to write and keep writing no matter what is going on in my life. I want help with effective plotting and writing project management and I really think this is where I can learn all that.
That said I received the first lesson today and as I was reading through I actually felt the breath leave my lungs in a gush of realization. Holly talks about her family and how she pulled herself through hard times and points out the various barriers that block our creative minds and as I’m reading I’m seeing myself in one of the people she talks about.
And this is where it gets personal: If you're squeamish maybe you should leave it here and find one of my stories to read. This is the only time I'm going to mention this dark part of my past in any real detail so please don't run away :D
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I was molested as a child – I don’t think that is ever going to be an easy thing to say – there were worse cases then mine and all in all I think I have grown up and moved on rather well but for a long time I was a victim. I would behave badly because I believed that I had been wronged and therefore had a right to sway from the rules, I blamed the people around me for not being the blinding force of protection I thought they should have been and I generally didn’t function well believing that I was broken so what was the use?
This all went on until one day I just snapped. I didn’t like who I was becoming and all in all truth self pity is very draining. I gave myself a lecture very similar to the one Holly gave her “friend” in her story. I told myself to get off my butt and stop wallowing in self pity. I was not the only one in the world to have something like this happen to them, in fact as a child of the 80’s I seem to be just one of many survivors of child sexual abuse. My case was mild, mild, mild compared to some of the stories we hear about so what the hell was I doing?
Who we are is not determined by others but by ourselves. How many times had I raged at a news report stating that a child abuser was let off lighter because he too had been a victim. We make our own choices! I was abused but I NEVER abused another, never wanted to and never would.
1. Because I find the whole idea of abusing a child or another human being absolutely abhorrent.
2. Because I made a choice not to be that person.
So what does this have to do with anything, apart from me needing to put all this into words? I realized something as I was reading Holly’s lecture about not being a victim and getting up and following your dreams. I like stories about broken people. In fact I never realized but I actually seek out and am drawn to characters who have either a childhood trauma, assault victims, or some other barrier holding them back from living the life they know everyone else is living. I love watching their struggle but more to the point I love watching them overcome that barrier. I loving reading about teens standing up to their abusive stepfathers, adults confronting their demons head on, and women finding love and refusing to hide in the shadows any longer.
These are the kind of characters I want to write. Women who have seen the dark side of the world and have suffered and lived in fear – I want to write those women getting stronger, making choices, falling in loving with men worth loving and finding out that there is good in the world through trial and error, making friends and confronting enemies, Women learning how to live and learning to love the new person they’ve become.
Wow I just kept on going there didn’t I? Anyway I just needed to get that all said, more to clear my mind then anything else.
I should get some sleep now.
Night all
XxXx
Sandra Connor
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