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Writer's pictureLee Dawson

Writer's Life

Hi again.


Okay, a writer’s life. From my perspective anyway.


I should really begin at the start, so that’s what I’ll do.


I started writing properly in the beginning of 2017. If you have read my other blog posts you will see what I started with, but that is really where my journey began. I began my writer’s life like most others, with notes and scribbles when ideas came to me. Notes became bullet points, then small paragraphs, then a chapter and finally a whole entire novel. An epic fantasy that came in at just under 170k words.


It started at work, jotting down ideas then I wrote what became my prologue on my lunch breaks. I didn’t own a PC or laptop at the time and had a computer at work so that’s where it started to take shape.


So I wrote my first real story (About 2k words) read it through, changed some bits, another read through like you do and was finally happy with what I had written.


Next step - let somebody read it……..


This is the nervy bit, letting someone read what I had written.


Talking to other writers over the last few years, this seems like a big thing for most of us, the dread we feel when we hand it over for somebody else to criticise and pull apart. So, I printed it out and took it home in a blue folder that I had lying around at work. I remember this because that first print out is still in it today, collecting dust on a shelf. But that first initial step of showing somebody my work was both terrifying and exhilarating. I couldn’t wait for someone to read it and I really didn’t want it to be shit.


Anyway, that’s where it started. Now, as a writer, I have found it both hard and easy to write fiction. I am a fantasy reader and always have been, so that is what I enjoy writing. Epic fantasy where I can build worlds and characters to go on crazy adventures with them.


But I digress a little, my life as a writer is enjoyable and frustrating all at the same time. I started off writing at work on my lunch breaks which went onto trying to write at home. I borrowed a notebook to start with which was rubbish, it was slow and kept crashing on me so I graduated to a tablet with a foldable keyboard. So as you can see, the struggle was real, haha.


I struggled along for almost a year before I became a ‘proper witer’ and got myself a laptop. I couldn’t wait to use it, and when I finally got my hands on that keyboard, it was like a whole new world had opened up. Although I had written maybe 40k words by then, I finally felt like I was going to get somewhere and push forward with this book.


Oh how I was wrong.


It took another 3 years to finish the first draft. What can I say I’m a slow writer, but that came from someone who hadn’t used a computer properly in years and wasn’t very fast at typing at all.


Alas, I have digressed again and have run out of my word quota for a blog. I promise it won’t take me as long to write another and I will try (not promising) to not dither and just get to the point.


Anyway, thanks again for reading and look out for the next post!


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