Saturday, June 2, 2012

28-Day Blog Challenge for Authors - Day 1


Hey There:

I'm about to embark on a writing oddisey, thanks to a contact on Goodreads.com I learned about the 28-Day Blog Challenge for Authors. Not long ago I joined a 40 day challenge but failed miserably, unless I can count texting and chatting as writing! I think I'll do better in this challenge though, this one is meant for writers, writers in process and wannabe writers (Me!). The participants can blog about anything they want or they can follow the daily prompt questions, which is the way I'll be going. So without further ado, here is the first question:

Describe your earliest memory of writing. How did your writing habit/process/career develop?

My earliest memory is not really of writing, but reading. I was 3 or 4 years old and had a Cinderella book that came with a cassette narrating the story, it even had special sound effects like the sounds that horses and mice make. I heard that cassette so many times I memorized the words and one day I read the whole book without the cassette, I surprised my Mom so much!

While my relationship with reading has been a loving one, my relationship with writing has been awkward at best. My dream is to be lounging at a seaside villa writing best sellers with ease, the reality is that I've destroyed everything I've written. Since I can remember, my attempts at writing went like this: I would feel inspired, write a short story or an essay, shelve it and time later when I saw it again felt horrified at my bad writing and destroy it before anyone could see it.

So how is it that I'm blogging? Here's the story: I met an author at my favorite coffee shop and after lots of talking and reading Truby's "Anatomy of a Story" I decided I could be writer....easy, right?

My grand idea was to start blogging and create a Social Media presence, so when my book was published I would be "someone" on the writing scene. That was almost two years ago, the book is finished and needs major re-write, but I lost my nerve to be a fiction writer. At least, I'm still a blogger, the first three months were the hardest since I wanted to delete everything, I forced myself to keep going and here I am today, blogging and enjoying when people tell me they read my stuff...though I still feel weird about it and when I re-read my posts I cringe at obvious grammar mistakes.

My current dream is to write non-fiction, which I thought would be easier since I'm so used to blogging, turns out it's not that easy, but I won't stop until I publish a book!

Thanks for reading my first post in this challenge.....27 more to go!

2 comments:

  1. Keep learning Ellie. You can obviously write. I couldn't write but conferences and mentors helped to rewrite and polish my book. It was released by my publisher four days ago. Yay. Never give up. My book is a faction :)

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  2. Thank you for your kind words Jo. This challenge will be great for everyone involved!

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