I want to write about an unpopular subject in the writing
world…..starting. After you have the
first book under your belt, you sit back, try to relax and wait for the next
amazing idea to hit you. But before that
happens, I won’t lie….it’s murder.
I still treat every manuscript the same way I did with
the first. I don’t open the Word
document and stare at a blank page. No
way. That would make me insane. And I don’t start in the beginning,
either. I realize that might make you insane. But I couldn’t, and still can’t, force what
won’t come.
You see, I’ve been a writer my whole life. Oh, yes, I’ve written notes, and checks and
To-Do lists. I’ve written addresses and
reminders and hate mail to the cable company.
I’d even written short little tales for my kids. What I had never done was write a novel. I knew I had one in me, and back then I could
only think as far as that one. Then one
day my four year old daughter announced she wanted to marry Edward the
Vampire. Really? A cold-as-ice interloper with abandonment
issues? Hell, no, that was not going to
happen. I decided I needed to give her a
role model who was a real man, someone I would be proud if she brought him
home. Someone with heart and valor and
courage. I jotted a few words down, then
a couple sentences, and soon, several paragraphs.
As I was enjoying shaping my characters and
world-building, I suddenly realized…..OMG, I was writing a novel! The very idea scared me so much that I closed
the computer and didn’t open it again for two weeks. The laptop sat on the couch, blinking it’s
lights at me in an accusatory manner. I
would glance at it, longing to be drawn to it, but never quite feeling the
pull.
I turned to the one person in my life who would know what
to do. My mum. Not a fellow writer, an editor, or even my
husband, patient as he tried to be with my dark looks across the living room at
an innocent piece of technology. “You’re
not writing tonight?” he would ask.
“No.” I would snap, closing the door on further conversation. I was confounded, stymied,
misunderstood. What was the
problem? What could help?
My mum knew. I
asked her over the phone if “it” had left me.
The elusive urge to create, the need to divine, the absolute requirement
to spill my imaginary worlds onto my laptop keyboard. I could hear her laugh over the phone. “You always do this,” she said. “You get overwhelmed by the task. Just do the next thing on the list.”
She was right, of course.
I always over think things. It’s
the curse of the perfectionist, the detailed, the
life-long list-maker.
And I’m a Scorpio, just to complicate matters. But my mummy’s words rang a bell of
understanding, of acceptance, even of empowerment. Damn right!
I was the writer and I would not let a little story take me
down. I hung up the phone and marched
into the living room. I flipped up the
laptop and told it, “Okay, then. Bring
it!” It took me only six weeks after
that to finish my book.
Next time you are facing the same situation, don’t go as
long as I did. When Mum gave me the key
to continue writing, I did. I wrote one
chapter at a time. I set tiny, easy
goals for myself. Write one
chapter. Write 500 words. Write 500 words that aren’t edited all to
hell the next day. And one more
goal….never force myself. And I always
think of the next scene, the next chapter, the next book, in the exact same
way. Just the next thing on the list.
BIO: Samantha
Combs writes YA and MG and currently has four books available.
Her first, Spellbound, a YA paranormal fantasy, has won the Global Ebook
Award for Speculative Fiction-Fantasy.
The follow-up, Book Two, called Everspell, released in January. There will be a third. She has another YA paranormal called Ghostly
and a self-published horror anthology entitled Teeth and Talons. Two more books are scheduled for release in
2012, The Detention Demon, a Middle Grade horror, and Waterdancer, a YA
fantasy. She is a proud author for
Astraea Press and Musa Publishing.
Samantha loves to connect with new and aspiring writers
and authors. Please visit her blog at www.samanthacombswrites.blogspot.com
or her facebook page www.facebook.com/AuthorSamanthaCombs.
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