Back In The Saddle Of Fictional Writing

Finally, after five long years, I’m returning to fictional writing after so long and some 22 plus books on home and frugal lifestyle writing.

This is the first novelette, published last night. It is a short and lite read for the commute to work. I had to do a simple writing to get back into the saddle. I found this story idea in my old files. I must have thought it up a few years ago and wiped up a quick outline. My past self did this for my future self, somehow knowing that getting into fiction is like rock climbing with limited skills. It gets easier but, as a writer, I need all the help I can get.

Thank you past self.

So, I find this story idea, the quick outline and the first chapter was even started for me. I still struggled a bit. But here it is. The story is fun. A little mystery, a little implied romance. If you are looking for deep kissing and passionate dialogue, this is not it. But the characters are charming and it is a little page turner.

It is about three people, Paul who has a drinking problem because of a loss in the past and a secret he keeps to himself. Emma, who thinks she has met her future husband but has no idea who this guy really is because he has created a façade. And then there is Jeff who is not who he pretends to be, not one bit and he has quite the past.

It is a quick read. I was ready to be done, to be honest. I have so many other ideas now that the doors are open wide and the energy is flowing. I’m eager to sink my typing fingers into a big piece of juicy work.

I started my writing career almost nine years ago on a cheap laptop. My husband saw me feverishly click clacking away on a decrepit computer at the kitchen table so, on one of our trips to Costco, he picked up a new $300 HP laptop for me to begin my new obsession. And begin I did. I was prolific the first two years. I learned of KDP and how to publish on my own for free and that was it. I whipped up book after book. I wrote frugal and then I started on fiction. I’m not saying it was good stuff, but I was in my element.

I remember reading interviews by famous authors. I wanted advice and the advice given was always the same: read a lot and write a lot. We had a beautiful yellow library within walking distance and next to it were two big, incredible children’s parks. Everyday, weather permitting, I would push a double stroller to this library and we would play at both parks, enjoy the rose garden on the side of the library and then spend time in the library reading and filling a bag with novels for me and fairy tales for the boys.

Between all the rituals of the day; tidying up the house, naps, cooking, reading time, nap time, bath time…I would read and write. I even invested in a treadmill we shoved against the living room wall and I would put in an hour of walking and reading or think about my stories and what I would do with that chapter and this ending and that character.

I had a lot of insecure thoughts and lacked any self esteem back then, but I think back on that time with such happy nostalgia. I had adorable toddlers and we had delicious routines, and I felt so alive and driven with my writing.

I started a blog then as well. Right here on WordPress. I collected a lot of my community with that blog. I can’t remember how they found me but they did and they later joined me on YouTube when I started a channel.

Then I took on too much and life changed and the list of jobs and chores and duties piled high. We bought our first little house for a song and dance and spent a couple years fixing it up and turning weedy lawns into kitchen gardens with apple, almond, and mandarin trees. I started a YouTube channel and was homesteading in town along with writing books, blogging and filming. Pretty soon I only wrote about, talked about, and filmed homemaking and frugality and I left fiction behind.

I tried several times over the years to take it back up. I had written four fictional books, actually five because the first book had to be completely rewritten, it was so bad. But those were all within the first two years. I wrote another novel during NaNoWriMo some five years ago, but then that was it. I couldn’t do it. My mind was stuck on homemaking.

We moved to this mountain town and this old house and it’s been another three years of fixing it up, gardening, planting an orchard, homeschooling, and tending to three dogs, two of which were becoming geriatric. I took on way, WAY too much and burnt out over and over before I read Essentialism, by Greg McKeown and got a clue. I’ve been on a downsizing and simplifying mission ever since.

Right now the kids are in a coop school part time, so the stress of homeschooling has been somewhat lifted. Both elder dogs have passed and, though I miss hearing them in the yard alerting me with every passersby, it is another weight lifted. I have left my channel and other hustles and whittled it down.

I now have two task: mothering and writing. Of course it’s all under the umbrella of homemaking but I love homemaking so it’s easy. It’s work and it does interrupt my writing, but I enjoy every aspect of it. Except cleaning the bathroom. I wouldn’t mind outsourcing that.

When I felt overwhelmed and burnt out and I couldn’t go back to fiction no matter how I tried, I began to reminisce over how it was the first two years and I began to return to that way of life. I returned to just the writing and now another blog. I returned to having no other hustles and staying off the internet. I didn’t even get what YouTube was back then. I knew it was there and a friend and I had made videos some twelve years back, but I didn’t really understand it and YouTube was rustic back then. And that was for the best. No internet or YouTube scrolling left a lot of time to read and write and be with children. I have gone back to that and all our lovely routines. They are a bit different now as the boys aren’t one and three years, they are ten and twelve years. I have more time as they like to do their things and can even cook a little and fend for themselves with some things, bath themselves and walk to the store if they choose.

Here I am, back to the old days. I have confidence now. I’ve written thirty four plus books in nine years, only twenty eight are still shelved. The earlier books are clumsy and sometimes dry, but I have improved vastly over the years and so it is true what they say, the more you write and the more you read, the more you hone your skills as a writer.

Cheers!