So it begins......

After attending an insightful and interesting marketing talk by Jonathan Pinnock, author of 'Mrs Darcy vs The Aliens', I've come to the conclusion that being a writer today is more complex than it used to be. A few years ago you'd try desperately to get an agent and then if you got one, they'd try desperately to get your novel published, but now your writing career starts before your novels even finished. Jonathan told us about the endless opportunities there are online, and in real life, to improve and help your career. I left the talk feeling enthusiastic and optimistic, with the firm realisation that rather than wallowing in my non-existent novel, I’d start smaller. So I'm going to attempt to write some short stories or flash fiction and send them off to competitions. It's exciting, though extremely scary as I know the rejection letters will come flooding in, but as they say, ‘if you can't handle rejection then you can't handle being a writer’. Something Jonathan Pinnock said last night stuck with me, and that was that "All the competitions you enter and contacts you make along the way contribute to your writing CV".

I’ve never really thought about all the opportunities that might be out there and so I was pleasantly surprised to find hundreds of search results on Google for writing magazines, competitions, forums and events.  I’m already a member of Absolute Write Water Cooler but often find that the advice is aimed for American writers and so there are a few fundamental differences, such as what you send to agents and of course spelling etc. So I’m quite excited at the prospect of joining a forum where I can meet other potential writers in the UK, and start my writing address book.  

I originally started doing a creative writing class at Oaklands College, St Albans, to gain some writing experience and to learn new techniques, but the two main lessons I’ve come away with are:

1) I work much better when I’m on a deadline

2) I’ve made valuable friends who not only love writing as much as I do but are happy to look at my work and criticise it; so effectively we will form an online writing circle.

There’s also a group in the area called Verulam Writing Circle which I will be checking out soon.

I’m shocked to have also found out that there is a Get Writing Conference every year at the University of Hertfordshire (where I work!) and not only can you attend a variety of lectures and workshops, but you have the opportunity to have a 3 – 5 minute pitch in front of real life agents. I’m definitely ready for that yet, but to know there’s an opportunity like that out there is incredible.

I’ve also, with regret, realised that I’ll need to join Twitter if I want to become a modern writer. I don’t understand Twitter and find it frightening so I might have to be given a master class by my fiancé Lewis before I attempt to do it alone.

As a writer, I obviously love reading and so I will be posting my reviews on new (or old) books I read. Not only will it provide an interesting read but also it’ll be a good way for me to identify what works and what doesn’t in a novel.