Building Blocks

It’s funny, I always believed that writing my first novel would be tough and any novels that followed wouldn’t face the same rigour. But I’m at the stage right now of writing my third novel and currently bumping along, writing scraps here or there, and not getting in that space, where it becomes a compulsive behaviour to continue writing the story formed in my imagination.

It’s tough when other areas of your life are facing challenges, as it can create a ripple effect on everything else, especially if those other areas of your life are not strong.

I’ve decided to challenge myself with this novel and write something that isn’t in the Crime genre. Right now I’m describing it as a drama with a romantic twist. I’ve had the urge for a while to write something with a heavy romantic theme, but have been afraid of the story turning into a pure romance novel. Of course there’s nothing wrong with romance novels, however, I believe that my writing mind would probably end up giving romance novels a bad name.

The main idea behind writing this type of novel was to allow time to research my future books, which will include police procedural, however, as of now not too much research has been conducted. Once I feel secure that my story has enough drama along with the romance aspect, I hope that will unlock me to dive into the research.

My grand plan is to work on Screenplays during the edits of my work. This will allow me to continue writing, but using a different tool to deliver it, which will also give me a break from novels.

When looking at the big picture of what I want to achieve with my writing, it can be a little scary. Of course there’s fear of what if I fail etc, which I try and convert into drive and determination, but sometimes that’s not always possible and you are forced to ponder the what ifs of the situation.

The good news is that life changes so quickly. If you’re in a place of challenge right now, it can always get better with time. Humour me for a moment and look back at the last five years of your life, I’m sure there’s been achievements and challenges that were overcome that you didn’t expect was possible.

I guess it all comes down to the old adage, “Take it one day at a time.” That’s not to say don’t plan and dream, but perhaps focus on building great productive days and this will lead to something you could have never imagined.