School Holidays = Writing Time!

I've finally done it. I've managed to start writing my first novel.

On Thursday I wrote the very first chapter of what I hope will become a successful young adult fiction novel.

Today I wrote two more chapters.

Not having any stress has certainly helped me to be more creative.

I've become so focused on writing the story that I simply have no room to create an issue of ih-klek-tik for the month of December. I've delayed the next issue until the 4th of January.

So far I can see a pattern forming; I begin the day with exercise, have a shower, and eat breakfast. Once I've gone through this ritual, I'm ready to write. Thoughts that I've had in the shower are still to the fore of my mind, which adds to the process.

I type madly for a good couple of hours, not bothering to stop to correct such trivial things as tense, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure. These will be fixed after I have finished my first draft.

What matters now is simply getting the story written. It is easier to polish a first draft, than it is to write a polished draft in the first go.

Once my mind is spent of ideas, I simply stop. I go and do something else. I might spend time with my husband, watch some TV, play the Xbox, pat a cat, surf the net, go to the shops, or cook something new in the kitchen.

I cannot read directly after a stint of writing. This is similar to my long-held inner rule of not talking about an exam once I've completed it. I don't want to ruminate over possible mistakes, as I will then continue to think about them.

In the case of writing, I'll only want to go back and fix what I've done. I'm not at the editing process, and won't be for a long while!

The goal, for now, is to simply get the novel written. I have approximately four and a half weeks before I go back to work. If I can average around eight chapters a week, then I will meet my goal.

I'm excited to be in this head space. I've finally begun something that I've always wanted to do.

Today's quote from my M.C.Escher calendar sums up how I feel quite nicely:

"Any schoolboy with a little aptitude can perhaps draw better than I; but what he lacks in most cases is that tenacious desire to make it reality, that obstinate gnashing of the teeth and saying, "Although I know it can't be done, I want to do it anyway.""