Six Years On: My Writer's Journey

​Six years ago, on a cold February in 2014 (so, perhaps to the day!), I started my writing journey. I’d been creatively hungry after a few changes in my life. The first was the breakup of one of the bands I was in that left a void that I was hungry to fill, and the second was hitting the wall when trying to write a solo record; a project I’d started in order to fill the void from the band breakup. 

I had a few songs nailed down for my solo project - guitar, bass and vocal parts - but I hit a massive wall, and it was just to big too break through. I needed more, and I needed to fill the void.

And that's when I started my writer's journey.

In the later hours of a random weekend night, I was alone in my office (drinking), searching for a way to quench my creative needs. I’d always wanted to write, and I’d been jotting down ideas for a while, so I finally decided to give it a go. I had a few ideas for stories, and I listed them in order of ‘worst to last’. I picked the worst one, opened a new word document, and I just started writing.

I picked the worst idea because I wanted to see if I could do it; write a full manuscript. If it was rubbish, at least I’d only wasted my least favourite idea! It was test more than anything else. Interestingly, the story was centred on a dream I once had, and it kind of just went from there. To my surprise, I finished it later that year. I spent a great deal of time on it, and even edited it to a point I was content with it. That was stage 1 of my writer’s journey: proving I had the minerals to write a whole manuscript.

It isn’t easy at all! Next came the continuation of my journey.

Stage 2 was to write another one, but a completely different story to the first. I managed it, but I only completed a single read through and left the final chapters blank, and I shelved it on the basis that it just wasn’t getting me excited enough.

It happens. There’s nothing wrong with sensibly shelving an idea. You can always go back to it later when you might be in a better place to complete it. That’s my philosophy anyway.

Stage 3 saw me turning to a manuscript I’d wanted to write since I was a kid. Oh, I had the perfect idea of this world in my head, and how it would work, and even some of the characters involved. I’d been coming up with them for years. Alas, it was a big project, and I had to shelve it after about 50,000 words. I couldn’t give it the time that it needed as a huge project whilst working such a busy career and whilst being in two bands again.

Stage 4 was an interesting one. I picked out a story in my list that was in the upper echelons of ones that I liked the idea of and wanted to write, and I decided to write it. It took a while, but fast-forward to 2016, I had a fully completed and fully edited manuscript. It’s my first baby. I love it. It was hard going, but it was done and dusted. However, it would have to compete in a very tough market and, alas, my first baby (as I still refer to it) is waiting in the side-lines.

It’ll emerge one day, but there was another project to fulfil first. And that’s where the next stage came in.

Stage 5 - “the one”.

I’d started the planning behind it in the early summer of 2016 when the previous manuscript work was coming to a close. That’s how exited I was about it - I started it whilst still polishing off the other manuscript. I couldn’t help myself. It made me feel good, and from the very first stages of planning, I was in love with the world I’d created and the characters I’d imagined. It has taken over three years to reach the stage - that’s half the time I’ve been writing in total - of finishing it. To be fair, I didn’t spend a great deal of time working on it from mid-2017 to late 2018 as a result of a huge change in my personal life that saw me moving from the countryside of Derbyshire to the west side of the Midlands. I was far too busy living my life during that period, but I got back on the horse in late 2018 and spent a great deal of time over 2019 perfecting it.

Living your life is important. If it means delaying your writing, you should live, I think. Don’t let the world slip you by. We only have one life; live it.

Again, there have been periods of absence from writing to live my life and to allow my fiancée to read my manuscript as well (she loved it!). But we got there in the end, and it’s ready. Fully completed, fully edited; done and dusted. Insofar as what happens next with it, I’ll be in the position to confirm shortly. For now, what I can say is that I’ve started the sequel (first time writing a sequel!) and it’s incredibly exciting, and scary in equal measure. It’s difficult, as it has been over three years since I started a manuscript afresh. Not only that, but this is a continuation of another story, so there’s a huge amount of planning that needs to go into it, and a great deal of putting the pieces together.

Things needs to link up between the two manuscripts and there must be cohesion. There needs to be considerable development in the world and the characters, as the word count on this one may be double that of the first. It’s like a huge literary jigsaw that will take a great deal of work to put together. It’s far harder to just roll with it like I did with the first in the series, because I must fit it with the first and make sure it’s all linear and logical. It’s no longer a case of just creating a story from thin air based on keeping to the rules of a broad idea. It must tap into every aspect of the first novel, and I expect this will be one heck of a task.

The positive thing overall is that I want to write the sequel. I have loads of other ideas, some of which I’m desperate to write. But this must take priority because I’m enjoying the story so, so much.

I take that as a very good sign.

JM

(P.S. never quit, and keep working)