The Story So Far...

I started my blog on 11th August 2006 (4 years ago today!) as an online writing journal to track my progression from "aspiring" to "published" author. At the beginning, I was involved in the Momentum playwriting workshop, and my writing was more tailored towards scripts rather than prose. From 2006 - 2007 I wrote 2 plays - Red and the Wolf and Hoodies, the latter receiving a professional rehearsed reading at the Momentum New Writing Festival in 2007. After Momentum, I tried to continue working on Hoodies, but after successfully completing NaNoWriMo and getting my first meeting with an agent at the Writing Industries Conference in 2008, I turned away from scriptwriting back to prose. Since 2008, I have completed four novels of at least 50,000 words each. Three of which are still first drafts; the first (Inter Vivos) is around 120,000 words in its sixth or seventh draft but has been abandoned because it doesn't work (soggy foundations). Meanwhile, since the beginning of this blog, I have had 6 short stories published (albeit without pay) and one story recorded by an almost-professional actor. I have also racked up 18 rejection emails and letters.

I still don't consider myself a "published" author - I know I am technically, but because I haven't been paid (in the last 10 years at least) I don't think it counts. What I want to do is to increase my output, complete more short stories as well as finish the first draft for my novel as outlined below and develop a couple of the first drafts I have already written. This won't happen if I spend all weekend playing The Sims 2. In the next 4 years, at the very least I'd like to say that I have a pretty good novel written that I'm scouting around the agencies, and that it is a serious contender for publication. I'd like to have a couple of stories professionally published too. I would like to return to script writing again, although in what form, I'm not yet sure. I think all this is possible, if I put in the work.

On one of my reports at primary school, my year 5 teacher said that I could "do anything I put my mind to". For years I only saw the positive in that statement, my teacher thought "I could do anything!" But the important point as I saw later was that I had to "put my mind" to it. So I will increase my creative output and set my mind to completing the goals above. Happy birthday, blog, and here's to the next four years.