Many people dream of quitting their job to do what they really love, I am sure of it. Some are already fortunate enough to do what they really want to do. I now belong to the latter category, but only for a day now. Officially I am still employed in my last job, but I have worked all the hours I still had to work and on Wednesday I will have my formal goodbye.
So now I am dedicating my life to writing. To secure myself with a bit of an income I am going to teach poetry and craft lessons to children of a primary school, but I am hoping that one day I can just fully focus on writing.
There are many short stories that I have written, but none are up to standard enough for me to try and publish them. I have only written for “fun” up until now. This time I take it far more serious. There are a few children’s books that I have written and illustrated that I might change a little at one point and try to publish, but I have realised that there is not much want for picture books unless they are at least a hundred pages long. Not by unknown authors anyway. Maybe my work just isn’t up to par. I hope it will be one day.
Right now I am working on a story that has been haunting me for the past ten years. I first wanted to write this as a graphic Novel with my ex boyfriend, who is an excellent artist. Back then it was a story about a demon who escaped hell with her heart, something that is taken from all demons that are grown in hell. The demons were grown from the souls of the sinners. It was a fun story, but it changed a lot over the years. From a graphic novel, I turned it into a play. There was this one part that I liked, which I wrote and I used that part to turn it into a book.
The story has completely changed and it is no longer about the demon woman, although she still plays a small part in it. I have decided I preferred to make this story about the two humans who were supposed to help the demon. Using humans is a lot more relatable. To me it is really important to be able to relate to a character in a book. I don’t have to have the same opinion, but I need to understand the opinions and the choices a character makes.
Reading other books, I have learned what I do and do not like in stories. I hate it when a writer treats his or her audience as if they are a little dumb and they explain everything up to the tiniest details. That being said, I also hate it when writers are vague and leave too much open to interpretation. I want to know what the writer meant, not what I could make of it. If I have to do that, I rather write my own story, not read yours.
Right now I am realising the delicacy of those sort of situations. When do I go too far explaining and when am I keeping it too vague? Are my characters likable? Am I being too silly and humorous or am I being too serious? Do I change my writing voice too often? When are my characters too whiney? And at the same time, I need the things that happen to affect my characters, if else they become too unrealistic. Writing is a difficult process.
The voice I think I have, is meant for young adults. Slightly above the tweens , because I do like to bring a little gore and a little sex (without too much description) to my stories. At the same time I don’t want to be overly serious and that puts me more towards the young adult audience. The voice I have, I believe is pretty young. Trying to be contemporary is difficult too, sometimes that tends to make characters a little too blasé. It’s hard and I am noticing that I am thinking about a lot of different elements. For instance I am afraid I am using everyones name too much. I am trying to deal with that, but in long dialogues and with a lot of opinions it is hard not to. Right now I just need to write and I can change little things later.
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