Have you ever loved writing so much you feel sick with excitement for it? I know. Writers are an emotional lot. Some more than most. But, recently, I discovered a very old writing project – a novel that I desperately loved and vowed one day I would come back to – but, ever since, life has just gotten terribly in the way. And it just stopped being part of my life.
I began a master’s degree. Left the town where I’d found my voice. And had a very bad breakup that would shape the rest of my life.
During and after my master’s degree, I wrote two more novels. Both of them set in Texas and both of them very much novels of my heart. But there was something about my first novel that was so different, so very raw and a product of my life circa 2016 that I knew I’d come back to. Or at least hoped to.
But, for such a long time I had abandoned it. Shoved it in a drawer (or rather a battered old memory stick) and accepted it was just ‘one of those things’ that would never get published.
But … recently I got to thinking what if?
Most of you will probably know that it was National Novel Writing Month this past November and, like many other writers, I struggled. And I struggled hard. For some reason, I could not find my way into the project I’d chosen. To combat it, I plotted, created character templates, wrote almost 100 pages (yeah, yeah, I know, I didn’t win the 50K) and even did research on my local town and asked my grandparents all sorts of questions. But it’s not coming out the way it should.
So I’m leaving it. And going back to the one that started it all.
I’m sure I’ll revisit the hometown novel one day but, for now, I am caught up in the exciting avenues of memory lane upon rediscovering my first novel. When I got out my old memory stick, dusted it off and starting reading, my heart flushed with excitement. And then I kept reading and was thinking, ‘You know what? This isn’t actually that bad.’
I remember writing it so fondly. It consumed everything. I want to feel like that again. During my last year of my undergraduate degree, I took a module called ‘Writing a Novel’ and in my sheer determination (yet also profound ignorance) I decided to get ahead of the game and write a whole novel during the summer before I went back for my third and final year of uni. I thought this was what everybody would probably be doing. I wanted to write and become an author so badly (and still do). I loved that semester and was so passionate about reading other people’s work too that I threw myself in head first. Because back in 2016, this novel was my absolute life. I lived for it. Dreamed it. Sang it. And worked damn hard for it.
So now I am coming back to it with bright shiny eyes and a critical editor’s eye, with a determination to hopefully, somehow, (please!) get it published. And attract the attention of some wonderful person in publishing who might just love it as much as I do. I’m also wholeheartedly kicking myself for abandoning it in the first place. So much time wasted. Sigh.
But, for now, onwards and upwards.
Wish me luck with this one. I may well just need it!
emilycharlotteould 