Finally! A story...

Over the last week, I've written a story. First one for about six months.

HOORAY!!!!

It felt, by turns:

1. Frustrating; I'm so out of practise at stringing words together on paper, everything felt rubbish.

2. Exciting; I'd had an idea, I did some research, and it came together with a fairytale yet tragic kind of feel to it.

3. Satisfying; I stuck with it, even when it wasn't working, and finally, had something to show for all the effort that holds together pretty well as a story.

I can't tell you too much more about the story itself, because it's in a competition over on the Den, where interested parties have to choose some objects, and the theme to fit them into is revealed at a later date. It's the Denizens' job to work it all together and weave magic, then we peer judge each other's stories to crown a winner.

Suffice to say I'm not convinced it's my best work, but it got me motivated again, and from next week I'm going to be planning some writing time into my routine and dusting off Tilda's story.

And just because it's my blog and I can say it again if I want to - I wrote a story! Hooray!!

New Year, new hope.

Anyone popping into the Scribbles over the last few months could be forgiven for thinking I've dropped off the radar. To some extent, they'd be right; I've not had a lot of writing time because of a variety of things happening elsewhere in my life. And I admit, it's led to a downward spiral of feeling guilty for not writing, so not really wanting to write, and then when I push myself to write in a bit of snatched time, I'm out of practise and everything I do write reads dreadfully!

I've said before that I often feel I have only so much creative energy, and when my life is busy or stressful, that's the first thing to suffer. It's certainly been the case over the last six months. However, by the end of this month I'm hopeful that certain situations will ease and I will be able to focus a little more on myself and my writing.

Already, I have some writing events to look forward to; I'm visiting a local school next Monday, as they are officially opening a new school library. I'm not cutting the ribbon - that'll be the local MP - but I will be talking to Years 5 & 6 and doing my best to encourage them in their own writing. I'm also booked for an event on World Book Day in an all-girl's school in Coventry, which I'm looking forward to very much.

I am planning to pick up Tilda's story again. I think I left her down a mine last September, so she'll be a bit fed up of the dark by now. It will be good to reconnect with her and her world, and continue her adventure.

So... I'm approaching the writing with new hope - hope that life in general settles down a little; that I can make more time to write; and more importantly, that I can fall back in love with writing.

This blog post is a start, right?