Tag: writing

The Charles Dickens Project and The Pickwick Papers

Posted on by dlmarriott

As promised, here is more facts and information about both Charles Dickens and his first novel, The Pickwick Papers.

(Sorry about the lack of space between some paragraphs, seems to be a problem with the site.)

 

I have a little trouble connecting with Mr. Pickwick and company. They are the typical overly dramatic Dicken’s type characters. But the “stories” they hear and report to the Pickwick Club instantly catch my attention. Especially the darker ones. What can I say? It’s my dark side. I was completely pulled into “The Convict’s Return” as told by a clergyman.

It’s the tale of young John Edmunds who grows up protected by his mother from his violent father. His mother takes the abuse to spare him. He is very close to his mother, and goes to church with her regularily. As he grows older, he drifts from his mother’s side, and no longer goes to church with her.

Once grown, John Edmunds is accused of a crime spree and sentenced to death. His mother’s heart is broken. His sentence is commuted to 14 years in prison.

Despite his hardened attitude, his mother visits him everyday, until she grows ill. He suddenly realizes how much he loves her and how sorry he is when she stops coming to the prison gate to see him. The clergyman tells John Edmunds that his mother is ill and tells him of her love and forgiveness, and the clergyman tells the man’s dying mother of his repentance. During the night John Edmunds is moved to another prison and the clergyman has no way to tell him that his mother had passed away. She was buried in the corner of the church graveyard without even a headstone.

Although John Edmunds had written letters to his mother via the clergyman, none had ever made it and the clergyman had assumed that John had died in prison. John’s father never visited, or cared what happened to his son.

Once released John returned to his village, looking for his mother. He went to the church, but the familiar pew they always sat in together was empty. He went to his childhood home, but someone else lived there. He didn’t have the heart to enquire further, and wandered on, sad and alone.

Quote: ‘On a fine Sunday evening, in the month of August, John Edmunds set foot in the village he had left with shame and disgrace seventeen years before. His nearest way lay through the churchyard. The man’s heart swelled as he crossed the stile. The tall old elms, through whose branches the declining sun cast here and there a rich ray of light upon the shady part, awakened the associations of his earliest days. He pictured himself as he was then, clinging to his mother’s hand, and walking peacefully to church. He remembered how he used to look up into her pale face; and how her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she gazed upon his features — tears which fell hot upon his forehead as she stooped to kiss him, and made him weep too…’

Later, John Edmunds came upon an old man. At first he didn’t recognize the person who had caused him and his mother so much pain. Then, when the man cursed him and hit him with a stick, he knew it was his father. Although he wanted to choke the man, John couldn’t bring himself to harm his father. The man collapsed on his own of a burst blood vessel right there and then. He died before his son could even raise him off the ground.

The old clergyman finished his story with – ‘In that corner of the churchyard,’ said the old gentleman, after a silence of a few moments, ‘in that corner of the churchyard of which I have before spoken, there lies buried a man who was in my employment for three years after this event, and who was truly contrite, penitent, and humbled, if ever man was. No one save myself knew in that man’s lifetime who he was, or whence he came — it was John Edmunds, the returned convict.’

I actually teared up a bit. Not only is the story heartbreaking, but Dickens creates art with his words. His poetic style brings real emotion to the page.

And now to Mr. Dickens – Here’s one of many interesting fun facts about Charles Dickens. Hans Christian Andersen was Dicken’s close friend and mutual influence. Andersen even dedicated his book Poet’s Day Dream to Dickens in 1853. But this didn’t stop Dickens, a bit of a jokester, from letting Andersen know when he’d overstayed his welcome at Dickens’s home. He made a sign and left it on Andersen’s mirror in the guest room. It read: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks, which seemed to the family like AGES.”

Blogging and The Charles Dickens Project

Posted on by dlmarriott

In a time when media is king, and using the internet as a tool to get the word out there is  necessity, I find myself overwhelmed. Authors no longer have the advantage of holing themselves up to write a book. In truth, I have to wonder if they ever did, or if that’s just Hollywood’s take on it. Anyway, as an author, not only am I writng, not one, but several things at once, but I am also trying to maintain an online presence. That means Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Youtube, GoodReads, etc. etc. Part of all of that is this blog. I feel terrible that this blog  is the thing that gets left in the dust, the most. For those of you who don’t know, I also work a full-time day job, and take a writng class on my day off, as well as being a member of a writing group. Throw in book signings, appearances at book clubs, etc. and it’s amazing I ever get time to make dinner for my family.

Now I’ve started my third facebook page titled “The Charles Dickens Project” and have been consistantly posting everyday. This is part of my research (oh yeah, I forgot to mention research in the list of things to do) in writing a historic fiction Christmas story in which Mr. Dickens himself will be one of the main characters.  I thought, since I made the page public, anyone could read it, but now I’m finding that’s not the case. So in an effort to kill two birds (excuse the cliche’) I am going to post what I write there, here. That way, those of you who don’t use facebook can keep up with my progress as well. Since I’ve been posting for a while, I’ll post one weeks worth once a day until I catch up. Afterwards, I’ll post here once a week. I’m reading all of Dicken’s books in order, and post summaries of where I am in each book. I also post biographical information, definition of Dickensian terms, and fun facts.  I hope you enjoy!

Week One –

Bio – Let’s start with a little background information. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on Feb. 7th, 1812 and died on June 9th 1870. He was born to John and Elizabeth Dickens, he had three sisters and four brothers. During his life he and his wife, Catherine had ten children.

Book One – Dickens’ first published novel was “The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club” more commonly known as “The Pickwick Papers.” The main characters are Mr. Samuel Pickwick, and his traveling companions, Mr Nathaniel Winkle, Mr Augustus Snodgrass, and Mr Tracy Tupman, who went out across the country as reporters of a sort. This was published as a serial. I did not read an overview, so at first I was a little confused as to what connection there was between one character and another. I quickly realized that Dickens simply used his main characters as a vehicle to tell a collection of otherwise unrelated short stories. Quite a brilliant idea!

One thing I have to say, Dickens’ chapter titles are almost stories in themselves. Take, for instance, the title of Chapter Seven of “The Pickwick Papers” – HOW MR. WINKLE, INSTEAD OF SHOOTING AT THE PIGEON AND KILLING THE CROW, SHOT AT THE CROW AND WOUNDED THE PIGEON; HOW THE DINGLEY DELL CRICKET CLUB PLAYED ALL-MUGGLETON, AND HOW ALL- MUGGLETON DINED AT THE DINGLEY DELL EXPENSE; WITH OTHER INTERESTING AND INSTRUCTIVE MATTERS. Quite a mouthful, wouldn’t you say?

I’ll stop here so I don’t overwhelm you. Tomorrow, I will get more into the story itself.

The Charles Dickens Project

Posted on by dlmarriott

Over the past several months I’ve been joking around about how I’m “Channeling Chuck.”  I have been posting all kinds of fun facts on similarities between Charles Dickens and myself on my facebook page.  Click here: D.L. Marriott Facebook Page

As it turns out we have quite a few similarities.  Now if only success as a writer was one of them!

Okay, so even though I can’t hope to compare, I can share other facets of his life.  For one, we are both self-published authors. Yes, although he had a publisher, Mr. Dickens was unhappy with his pitiful share of the money, so he went out and self-published a book.  It turned out to be one of his most successful books.  I could give you many more interesting facts and parallels, and over time I will, but for now I am concentrating on writing a book in which Mr. Dickens, himself, is a major character.

In preparation for this, I am reading all of Charles Dickens works, in order.  Either that makes me extremely intellectual, extremely brave and adventurous, or extremely crazy. Whatever you want to call me, feel free to follow me on my quest to better understand a great classic author.  To share what I learn I’ve launched a new facebook page. Click here: The Charles Dickens Project

It’s a public page so you don’t need to be a facebook-er (is that even a word?) to check it out.

I hope you do.  I think it’s going to be fun!  Or as Mr. Dickens would say – It will be a jolly undertaking that will, no doubt. bring forth much spirited repartee.

Breaking the Rules

Posted on by dlmarriott
I’m currently in the phase of writing my book, that I now understand, I hate the most. Revisions. How tough can that be? It’s not difficult, because my editor doesn’t get my characters and has demanded I practically rewrite the entire manuscript. It’s difficult because the English language is a mess, and most English speaking human beings, don’t follow the rules.
I didn’t have the money to hire a professional editor, but I’m no good at proof-reading and editing my own work. I was an “A” English student in high school, so I do know, or thought I did, most of the rules. When I’m writing, however (and this includes this blog), I’m too busy trying to get all the words and ideas down fast, to stop and think about those rules. When I try to self-edit, I may start off okay, but before I know it, I slide back into writer-mode and start tweaking the story, forgetting all about punctuation, fragments and dangling participles. Guess what? The human brain does not think in complete, grammatically correct, sentences. Really.
So my solution was to ask some very good friends to help me out. Not just random friends, I had two in mind. One had edited a book in the past, and the other had recently retired from professional editing. On top of that, I took portions of my novel to my writing class, where my instructor, as well as up to 15 other students, gave them the once over.
I’ve heard, many times, how self-published books are often considered poorer in quality, because they are riddled with grammatical errors. Yet, I have seen professionally edited, and published books with glaring errors as well. I really have my heart set on making sure my novel is perfect. Well, I know it won’t be perfect, but as error-free as possible.
In my mind, I thought more was better. With three plus editors, I figured it was the best I could do. What one person missed, hopefully the other would catch, and that’s exactly what happened. Now I have the edited copies in hand, and need to make the revisions. In some cases, an edit was incorrect because of intent of the character. The placement of a comma can change the whole meaning and tone of a sentence.
Here’s an example:
My version was an argument between two friends. One has had a nightmare, but doesn’t believe it was just a nightmare, and she’s trying to convince her friend.
“It wasn’t a nightmare.”
“What do you mean it wasn’t a nightmare?” demanded Janice.
“It was real.”
“What do you mean it was real?”
My characters are practically shouting at each other at this point, and Janice is not really asking if the nightmare was real, she’s being sarcastic, so I left out commas.
One editor put the comma in here: “What do you mean, it was real?”
The other put it here: “What, do you mean it was real?”
In both cases, the comma totally changed the tone of the sentence and conversation. When we’re arguing with each other, we rarely use pauses that would be indicated by commas. So sometimes I know I’m breaking rules, on purpose. Many times, each editor corrected the same sentence differently, which left me confused and looking up the rules myself, which often are confusing themselves.
There are rules we break all the time. As a writer, do I follow the rule? Or do I follow what most people would find more natural. Nothing challenges grammar rules more than the old lay/lie conundrum. The definition of lay, is to place. The definition of lie, is to rest or recline.
In everyday language we butcher this one regularly. A subject (John) lies down. You lay down an object (the book). You cannot lay down on the beach.  If you make yourself prone on a beach, you lie on the beach. I saw one quote that made me laugh. “You can’t lay on the beach, unless you’re a chicken.” When we ask our dog to lay down, we are also incorrect. The dog will lie down, not lay down, unless of course he is unconscious, and I lay him on his side.
You cannot take a book and lie it on the counter, but you can lay it on the counter. My biggest question is once you lay and item down, does it now lie there, or does it lay there? What about a body? On headstones we see “Here lies Sally.” Chances are, Sally didn’t walk over to that coffin and lie down. She was placed there by someone else, therefore she lays in the coffin, right? To make it more confusing, the past tense of lie, is lay. So if Joe talks about when he took a nap yesterday, then he lay down on the bed yesterday. So even if Sally did lie down in the coffin, wouldn’t she lay in the coffin now? Are you still following me?
This has been quite the issue for me as there are a plethora of dead bodies in my story, and suddenly I’m not sure if they lay beneath the earth, or lie beneath the earth. Maybe the confusion is simply because people fear death. We like to think of our loved ones as resting in their graves, rather than the reality that they were put there, so maybe we feel more comfortable with saying they lie in the grave. Or maybe the problem is whether the reference is to the object rather than the subject, and I’m still just confused.
I could go on and on about confusing rules, just look up punctuation within quotes, when quotes are within actions, and so forth. Or how about effect vs. affect. And then there’s the apostrophe; it can mean letters of a word are missing, or when followed by an “s” it means the word is possessive, except for “it’s” which is never possessive. What about hyphens, I never know when to use them and when not. I sometimes have to wonder how I even passed English, much less got top grades. Maybe it’s like “new math”, they changed the rules just to confuse the adults.
And guess what? Just to make it all the more confusing, the grammar/spell-check on my computer is often incorrect. The rule says to write 4:30 a.m., but my computer tells me to get rid of the periods. Well all I have to say is I’m very sleep deprived. It is really 4:30 a.m., and I have been revising and editing (and looking up rules) for the past two days from the wee-hours of the morning until late at night. So if there (notice I didn’t accidentally type their or they’re) are any glaring grammatical errors or typos, cut me a break okay?
Most non-writers think that the hardest part is in coming up with, and crafting the story. Ha! That part I’ve got. I’m starting to think life must have been so much easier when, to get our point across, we would just point and grunt. My daughter’s solution to my frustration? Learn a different language and write all my books in that language. It just might be easier than learning English, even though I already speak English!

Who came up with all these rules anyway?

The End, a beginning…

Posted on by dlmarriott

Last week I took a vacation from my day job, and locked myself in a room in an effort to finish my first full-length novel “Souljourner”. On the afternoon of July 31st it happened; I finally got to the end.  By the way, despite my husband’s protests, I did not write “The End” at the end.
I am, what other writers call a “pantser”, in other words, I fly by the seat of my pants. Instead of starting with a detailed outline, I just write. When I start writing the story, I might have a general idea of the general premise, but for the most part I let the story tell itself. That can be frightening, especially to those who are “planners”, but it’s the way that works best for me.
In the beginning, even I don’t know the end, so it’s extremely exciting when I get there, because I’m getting the same thrill of discovering what happens as, hopefully, my readers will.
But this ending is also, what I hope will be, a beginning. I can’t convey how much pleasure writing is for me. How miraculous it is to have all the pieces fall into place, in almost a magical way, to make a complete story. I will be blissfully happy if I get to do this for the rest of my days.
So here’s to reaching the end of one story, and hopefully the beginning of my new life.

Where art thou…art

Posted on by dlmarriott

Last night at the Chapter One writers group, I read an essay I wrote a couple of years ago about my search for a creative outlet. It chronicled my failed attempts at dance, music, and art. I found myself to be hopelessly clumsy, possibly tone deaf, an only mediocre at drawing. I’ve had an ad for ballroom dance lessons on my dream board forever.  It was a dream I considered unobtainable. I’d thought I was doomed to be left-brained; one whose analytic skills outweigh their artistic/creative skills.

That was until I discovered writing.  It turns out to be the one artistic venture that I seem to have some natural ability at. Up until now, I saw that as a victory.  Not just the victory of writing a story people might actually like to read.  But a victory over the left side of my brain in a “move over left brain, the right brain is taking over” kind of way.  That somehow, I had conquered my predetermined biological make-up.

Ha!  I was wrong. I did some more research. It turns out right-brained people are better at art because they think visually, and left-brained people think verbally.  Which means, left-brained people are better at putting thoughts into words instead of pictures, and therefore make better writers.

I found this to be frustrating. I’m not sure why it bothers me. Obviously it seems to be working to my benefit. But for some reason, I feel like I’m less in control.  That any talent I  have boils down to the way my cells divided when I was nothing more than a tadpole, rather than my determination, my heart and soul.

So I started taking every right-brain vs. left brain test I could find, hoping to find some evidence that my mind was more than a collection of gray matter that I had no control over.  I was intrigued by the fact that I seemed to have attributes of each side. Then I read that some people can actually consciously switch sides.

So I tried an experiment.  I stared at one of those tests that show a dancer turning in circles.  If you see her as turning clock-wise, you are using your right brain, if you see her turning counter clock-wise, you are using your left brain.  I stared, and I stared.  I concentrated hard.  Imagine my surprise when right before my eyes, she switched directions!  I did it.  I conquered my own brain!  Although she seems to switch back to counter-clockwise easier and quicker than clock-wise, I can now control which side of my brain I’m using.

I plan to keep working on switching her direction until it becomes easier.  Think of it as gray matter calisthenics.  Maybe someday my mental work-out will pay off. And maybe I just might take those ballroom dance lessons after all.

The End

Posted on by dlmarriott

p { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }

No, I haven’t finished the novel yet, although I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s getting bigger and brighter by the day. But today, I woke up with words flowing through my head. That happens to me a lot, I wake up with a story running along all by itself. It makes me wonder if I’m actually the writer, or if there’s some other entity doing all the work who, once in a while, interrupts my sleep and forces me to put it to paper.
For some, starting a story is the difficult part. Putting those first words down on the page. For some, it’s all the middle stuff. Making sure point A connects to point B. For me, the hardest part is always the end. Generally when I start a story, I have no clue what the ending will be. It’s somewhat unnerving to start writing not knowing where it’s going when the story starts telling itself. I’ve made the joke several times that I just take transcription for the voices in my head, but often that’s exactly what it feels like.
Even when I finally get an idea of what the ending should be, writing it is the most difficult part of the process for me. Once I’ve built up all the drama, bringing it to a conclusion that brings the reader back down without leaving them feel disappointed is an incredibly difficult thing. I’ve known the ending of my novel for a while now, but had no idea how to tell it with just the right amount of tension, emotion, and completion to leave the reader feeling satisfied.
As a reader, the ending can make or break a story for me. I can be totally entranced by a book, but if the ending doesn’t deliver, it frustrates me. The ending is the last thing the reader is left with. To me, it’s critical to make it memorable. Unfortunately, the ending is also generally the most controversial. Some love “happily ever after” endings, some hate them, some like the story to hang, without a clear ending, others not. No matter what ending you come up with, there will be people who will sing its praises and some who will criticize every word.
I’ve talked about J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter before. The epilogue is probably the most controversial part of the seven books. Harry Potter fans are divided, some loved it, some hated it. I myself liked it. I didn’t love it. Not because I didn’t like the way the story ended, just the way it was written. I like it enough, and it’s grown on me some since I first read it, but I felt it could have been stronger. I give Jo kudos though. I can’t imagine how difficult it was to wrap up seven books of storyline.
One of my other favorite children’s/young adult authors, D.J. MacHale, had to wrap up ten books and years of the main character’s life in his Pendragon series. I actually sent him a message to tell him I thought it was the best ending I’ve ever read. I have read other reviews from readers who hated it. To me it was perfect.
So I guess in the end, the end has to be what the writer feels is necessary. We just have to hope that not too many people are disappointed. I’m hoping there’s some fate that’s telling me that the ending I wrote is the right one. An hour after I woke up with my ending in my head, my husband awoke to tell me he’d just had the weirdest dream. He dreamed that I finally came to the end of my book. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is.
The End.

A friend of a friend?

Posted on by dlmarriott

You know the saying, a friend of a friend of a friend… Or how about the adage that there is only six degrees of separation?  If you really think about it, it just might be true. I’ve certainly had this phenomenon present itself before. Somehow it’s just a bit exciting to think you know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone famous.

This week I met the sister of a friend. (That would be only one degree of separation. Or would that be two?)  My friend mentioned that her sister came from Maine, Stephen King land as she put it.

“Really?” I replied.  “I’m a huge fan!” Nothing new or earth shattering in that exchange. I followed that up with “Actually he’s influenced my writing quite a bit.”

I’ve been reading Stephen King’s books since my teens. I love the way his stories keep me at the edge of my seat, not knowing what’s going to happen next. His descriptive style pulls me right into his stories.

In addition, although I’ve read several good books on the craft of writing, I count his book “On Writing” as the one that taught me the most. One of the greatest compliments I can get is when someone tells me one of my stories is Stephen Kingish.

So I really did mean it when I told this sister of a friend that Stephen King has influenced me.

Her response was not what I was expecting.  She told me he was one of her neighbors and sometimes saw him out and about.  My response? “Wow, cool.”  For a writer, sometimes words can escape me. (By the way we would be up to TWO degrees of separation, or maybe that’s three, still respectable either way.)

My friend turned to her sister and said, “Dody here is an author also.”

Okay, so we were talking Stephen King.  I don’t think I could ever comprehend the idea of mentioning my name as an author in conjunction with Stephen King. I laughed and pulled out a bookmark that has all the information for Finding Hope, my website and this blog.

My friend told her I was good. I blushed and told her she could check my book out if she wanted. Then, in what had to be a moment of incredible bravery, or insanity, I handed her a second bookmark and said, “Here, if you bump into your buddy Steve, you can tell him to check me out.”

I know, I can hear you laughing. Me too. But you never know. Just maybe this friend’s sister will actually take that bookmark back to Maine with her, and maybe instead of it getting lost in her suitcase or on her counter she’ll actually have it on her, and just maybe she’ll bump into Mr. King himself.

Maybe, just maybe, she’ll remember the bookmark and give it to him.  And if all the stars align and the world stops rotating on it’s axis, he won’t toss it in the nearest trashcan, or crumple it up and stuff it in his pocket to get destroyed in his washing machine.  And just maybe he’ll decide to check me out and not laugh his butt off at this little author actually doing something so bold as handing one of his neighbors my info.

IF, by chance he gets that far, and actually reads my story, and finds that I may have some future in writing, and takes the time to drop me a note and tell me so, It will all be for naught because I’d probably die on the spot!

But you just never know. Maybe that sister of a friend, who lives in the same neighborhood as Stephen King just might change my life. Or maybe I’ll win the lottery.  I’m somehow thinking the lottery is more likely, but a girl can dream can’t she?

Marking Time

Posted on by dlmarriott

This month marks one year since a story I wrote was published, a first for me as an author. It’s a true story about friendship that appeared in the Reader’s Write section of the February 2010 edition of the Sun Magazine.

How long have I been a writer? I get asked this question from time to time. The answer isn’t a simple one. First of all I believe a writer, is a writer their entire lives. Even if they never put together a story book when they were young, or kept a journal as a teen. One who becomes a writer as an adult, has always been a writer on the inside.

I’ve read interviews with several well known authors who talk about how they wrote stories from the time they could hold a pencil. At first this gave me pause. I didn’t write stories when I was that young, maybe I won’t measure up to these people who knew they wanted to be writers since infancy. I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until much later, and in fact scoffed when others told me I could be. Now I know that was just my introverted personality talking.

Anyone who knows me now is no doubt laughing at the thought of me being shy, but it’s true. I was an extremely nervous child, to the point of making myself ill at times. Even as an adult, I was terrified of new people, and new situations. I didn’t go anywhere by myself, I always convinced my husband, or friends, to go along. I was afraid of getting lost, or looking stupid, or saying the wrong thing.

Several things changed that. First and foremost was the birth, life and passing of my son. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that can give you better perspective on what’s truly important in life than losing a child. And there is no example greater of bravery than the daily struggle my son went through for 16 years. As the mother of a child who couldn’t speak, I had to step up and be his voice. I often had to fight to get him what he needed. I couldn’t afford to be shy anymore.

Still, that was different. I’d developed a fierce attitude when it came to my children, but still deferred to others when it came to myself. I was a born follower which meant even if I felt strongly about something, if the rest of the group felt differently I would go along with it, doubting myself along the way. Knowing just how much my actions were influenced by my desire to be accepted, I am incredibly lucky and amazed that I came out of my teen years in one piece.

Once my job as parent became less of a focus, I found myself adrift. I’d developed the ability to assert myself even if it was only in my children’s interest. I couldn’t just shut that off and be the meek person I’d been before. I needed to find something I could be passionate about. I’d always loved planning theme parties, and looked into becoming an event planner. I had experience as a secretary and looked for jobs that might be related. I loved to cook and considered catering. I’d always loved reading, and dabbled a bit in writing for my own personal enjoyment and it had been suggested more than once that I try writing. I started a bit of research.

I found a class titled “Writing for Publication” at our local technical college. I remember the sense of excitement at the thought of taking the class. I also remember the fear when I actually did sign up. Seems silly that anyone should be fearful about taking a non-credit class, but that’s how I’m wired. The difference is now I understand my fear and fight to not let it take over. I couldn’t be happier that I didn’t give in to my nagging self-doubt. I set goals for myself. I would go to class, and I would always bring some writing to share despite the fact that it wasn’t required. It’s very similar to setting a goal to exercise and lose weight and to stick with it despite feeling tired or sore or hungry. I have to push myself to do things I’d normally avoid regardless of how much they set my stomach in knots. I set the goal that I’d actually send my writing out and try to get published. After six months I got that first acceptance letter, and after only one year as an aspiring author, I became a published one.

In hindsight, I’ve enjoyed the written word since very young. I was a voracious reader. I didn’t write stories, but I certainly made them up in my head. I was always thinking and as that shy child was often alone, with only my imagination to entertain me. I’d always had pen pals and enjoyed writing long letters. It was required that I join clubs in school –  and the clubs I chose? The school newspaper and the yearbook committee. As an adult, I wrote Christmas letters every year,  and I wrote letters to out of state family and friends. I was always more comfortable writing than speaking. I’m still terrible at keeping a journal but I still have my wild imagination, and now I have determination. Determination to be myself, and to overcome my fears. Fears that I understand will never truly go away, but can certainly be managed.

So how long have I been a writer?  I’m in my seventh semester of writing classes. I’ve been actively pursuing a writing career for two years. I’ve been a published author for one year (not counting the articles I wrote for the school newspaper).  But I have undoubtedly been a writer my whole life, I just didn’t know it. Now I can’t imagine doing anything else. Just like exercise, once I pushed past the pain, I got a rush like no other. I have never been happier in my own skin as I am now.

Later this week I will post the story that was accepted and published by the Sun Magazine. I will post the full version for you; their editors were ruthless. Despite the pain of the amputation of a good portion of my story, I was and still am incredibly proud of making this milestone. And despite any fears (and yes they’re still there), I am determined to make many more.

I’ve been a writer forever and intend to be a writer until my time is done.

Baby Steps And Light Bulbs

Posted on by dlmarriott

I have to admit, since the holidays it’s seemed like everything was conspiring against me when it came to writing. There were those left over January Christmas parties, birthdays, beginning of the year chores such as organizing paperwork and bills, projects at work that left me tired at the end of the day, and the Packers. I live in Wisconsin, need I say more? As thrilled as I am with our Super Bowl champs, it meant every weekend for the past several weeks were occupied with football parties. I’d used up all my vacation days at work, so my available writing time was greatly reduced.

I was feeling stressed by the lack of any down time and wasn’t sleeping well. It wasn’t unusual for me to be unable to get more than four hours of sleep. The result, I started catching every bug out there, more stress. Snow storms that prevented travel to writing group meetings, even more stress.

I was increasingly frustrated, guilty, sad, angry, and disappointed that I wasn’t doing ANY writing. That New Year’s goal was haunting my nightmares. I have to say, I’m glad I’ve made my goals public. It makes it hard, if not impossible, to give up on them knowing everyone you know is waiting and watching to see if you can do it. Not that I could EVER give up on writing. For me it’s a necessity of life, analogous to breathing, but it might have been easy to put the novel on the back burner for a while. When I’d finally have an hour to spare, I’d sit in front of my blank computer screen and doze off. The longer this went on, the harder it was to get back into gear. I was losing site of my characters and storyline. It was disheartening to say the least. I missed them terribly.

I couldn’t be happier to tell you I’m finally back, really back. It started with a short story. It’s totally unrelated to the novel, but sometimes you need to just shift gears for a bit. It was one of those light bulb stories. I was sitting in the break room at work eating my lunch when a co-worker’s cell phone rang. (I do owe her one!) The music it played reminded me of a carousel, a light bulb went off, and bang in 24 hours I had a completed short story. A horror story no less!

Then, because I actually had something to share, I went to meet with a group of fellow writers and friends. It felt good to be back in the circle. The next thing that happened was amazing. I was at work when a client came in holding a copy of “Where Do I Begin – One Woman’s Story” with the request that I sign it for her. A little ego boost does wonders when one is doubting their abilities.

Then I started with little things; making a Twitter post, e-mailing an agent, looking up information on building a website, going back to my writer’s groups, starting my writing class again, even writing an update for this blog. Things that I count as working towards my goal of having a career as an author. Finally I had a whole weekend to myself and before I knew it, I had two chapters written and the ideas are flowing again. The night I wrote, I actually slept eight full hours. Now that I’ve started, I’m back to jotting notes all over the place, and I wake up in the morning thinking about where I’m taking my story, or what I want one of my characters to accomplish. It’s good to have my old friends back.

I’m not foolish enough to think this won’t happen again. That I might not get stuck, or that life won’t interrupt me before this is done. But now I know all it will take is some baby steps and maybe a light bulb or two to get back to the place I’m happiest to be.