Never Trust a Misfit!

It’s confession time here at Mummy Misfit corner this morning.  Remember that promise I made to myself about not writing until Easter?  Well I broke it …

I’ve kept the part where I said I’d be doing lots of promoting - I’ve done guest blog spots and author interviews, sent my sequel out to be reviewed and sales have been encouraging.  So that makes me a good girl.

But promoting is BORING!  I know I have to do it to get the books out there and talked about, but it’s just such a constant slog - often with little reward.

So, when a tiny little seed of a book grew into something with roots, I found I couldn’t ignore it any more.  I told myself I’d just write Chapter One and see if I liked it.  The trouble was, 4,000 words in, I liked it quite a bit and the characters were determined to keep me going.

I made it to the end of January without writing but now I think I’m on a path where there’s no going back.  This has got me thinking about what I’ve learned about myself as a writer in the past few years:

THE MISFIT WRITER

1. I’m fickle.  I make promises to myself I can’t keep.  I am never to be trusted again!

2.      When I need to write, I need to write.  No point trying to stop me.

3.      When I don’t want to write, I can sometimes push myself - not always, sometimes.

4.      I’m amazed by how a germ of an idea can turn into a fully rounded story if you have the right characters.  Three plot-lines have literally popped into my head from nowhere for this new book, just because they were the right things for the characters as they developed.

5.      I don’t argue with my editor (husband) anymore.  I’ve told him nothing about the plot of this book so he’s discovering it as a reader would.  If something isn’t clear or doesn’t ring true, I need to listen to my ‘reader’ and address it.

6.      I know (I hope) when a book is ready to be written.  I’ve cast aside a 35,000 word work in progress to write this new novel because it just wasn’t the right book for me at the time.

7.      I now know, for sure, that I can’t over-plan.  If I already know the whole story I get bored and I don’t want to write it.  I like to be surprised as a writer as well as a reader.  I listen to my characters really carefully now and see what it is that they’re trying to tell me.

8.      I’ve stopped looking at writing a book as a mammoth task.  It’s a journey from A to B which involves getting a certain amount of words down on paper every day.  Simples!

9.      Teenage sons are incredibly useful when you need to know slang words used by their generation.  There are 19-year-old twin boys in this new book and my son’s input has been invaluable.

10.  I’m terrified of breaking out of the Mummy Misfit mould.  I know that my readers have enjoyed Libby and her adventures.  What if they don’t want me to leave the diaries and write a novel with new characters and plot?  Also I’d got the seal of approval from an agent and major publishing houses with Mummy Misfit - I knew I was on to something that could possibly pass muster.  This ‘Book Three’, as it’s called, won’t be afforded that luxury.  It will go out into the big, wide world, virgin-like and exposed.

So there you go.  Heart on sleeve time.  Watch this space and I’ll keep you posted on the exciting and terrifying birth of a new book.

BOOK THREE!

My first two novels, Diary of a Mummy Misfit and The Darker Side of Mummy Misfit, are NOT my mad musings - they are novels with characters and plots!  Give them a whirl!  On Kindle at Amazon and in paperback at Lulu.