One Year In Writing + Photo Prompt & Poem

So this week, it’ll be just over a year since I really, properly started trying to write a book, instead of just floating the idea around!

At the time, I gave myself a goal of 6 weeks to get it finished. Having never written anything before, I had no idea how ridiculous of a goal that was! It didn’t take me long to work out that writing a book is definitely not as easy as just thinking something up and blurting it out onto the page.

Sometimes I couldn’t get the right words out, sometimes I was too tired to think, and sometimes I had a wobble and thought everything I’d done was rubbish.

In the end, I didn’t get that book finished, (Yet! It’s still in the works!) but I did make it to 23,000 words, before another idea called out for me.

At the time, that was the most progress I’d ever made towards any project in my life! So although it wasn’t completed, that first attempt gave me a lot of useful insight and helped me to unlearn some unrealistic expectations that I had about writing in general.

---

It took me a while to accept that my writing process was always going to be a little bit chaotic- multiple things on the go at once, in particular- but eventually I made peace with it, and decided that I just had to go with the flow.

So the flow carried me 10,000 words into my next book writing attempt. At which point I had another new story idea that took on a life of its own.

I ended up with a second started-but-unfinished book. But this time I didn’t feel so disappointed. This one taught me to accept that progress doesn’t always take the form of a straight line. Sometimes it goes backwards or wiggles around a bit, and that’s ok.

So about 2 months back, guilt-free, I moved on to attempt no.3. Which *fingers crossed*, my brain has currently managed to stick to.

---

A few weeks ago, I saw that my one-year writing anniversary was fast approaching, so I buckled down as hard as I could, and managed to get this new idea to 19,000 words as of yesterday!

That means, in the year since I wrote my first sentence of a book, I’ve managed a total of just over 50,000 words, spread over 3 ideas!

It might seem like a rather small number for an entire year’s work, after all, people that do NaNoWriMo can get done in 1 month what took me 12!

But it’s by far the biggest non-personal-life achievement I’ve ever experienced. I feel like I’m working towards something for once, after years of being a procrastinator. Even if it’s been slow progress, I’ll always cherish this first year and what it’s taught me.

So, that’s what my first year of writing looked like, let’s hope by next August I’ll have doubled that word goal!

---

Photo Prompt!

Sometimes when I do a photo prompt, it’s something pretty or cute, like last week’s bee. Sometimes it’s something unusual, like a strange hole in the road. This one is just weird… and gross.

Toilet Dog™️. Why is there a half eaten hot dog in this loo stall? Just… why? What makes this even stranger, is that the shop this toilet was in, doesn’t even sell hot dogs. Nor do any of the other shops in the village. Someone’s brought this thing on a journey to get here. So, uh, there’s something to think about!

---

Poem!

Young ideas taking shape,

Even if they don’t go to plan.

Allowing yourself to try,

Reveals fun you might’ve missed out on.

Often times progress appears really slow, but

Newly formed plots take a long time to grow.

Every word is a small victory.

Thank you very much for reading!