"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and open a vein."

Hi again. Between uni work and rewriting I've been reading over the manuscript of my one-and-only complete work of novel length, The Seven Stones of Caliger. As you might expect from the title, I wrote it when I was about thirteen or fourteen. I keep a full copy of it in my room and take it out occasionally to remind myself that my writing has indeed improved over the last four years. I have to say, I'm incredibly proud of this 100,000+ word fantasy novel, because it assures me that I really can write a book and finish it, despite how awful and utterly unpublishable this particular book is. I'm yet to make it through a whole paragraph without thinking 'what?' in reference to sentence structure, character's emotional reactions, word choice, or even just the plot in general. Rather, the complete lack of plot. And the info-dumping! I'm on page 14 and already I've got a character explaining to the other leads why the bad guys are attacking and what will happen if they win ... literally while the characters are standing just outside the city gates because the city is CRUMBLING TO PIECES. *facepalm*

The beloved manuscript.

I feel slightly better knowing that my printed copy is not the latest draft, and thankfully Mr. Info-Dump was scrapped from the story. Unfortunately there are still many other appalling things that I am reading that I am sorry to say, still exist in draft thirteen. (No exaggeration on the draft number there - my younger self had not quite grasped the concept of "rewriting" and hence each "draft" only differed very slightly from the previous one, aside from random drastic changes such as killing off Mr. Info-Dump.)
Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that I no longer write like my thirteen-year-old self, and though I'm no Wodehouse by any stretch of the imagination, there is definitely evidence of a great improvement in my pen-wielding. You have my permission to celebrate that the literary creations of the thirteen-year-old Erin will never again be seen by the public, but hopefully something better. I apologize if you were one of the unfortunate souls who had to endure reading through this grueling manuscript a few years ago and probably cringed inwardly as you told a starry-eyed me, 'Yes dear, it's wonderful. With a little editing I think you could look at publishing it.'

Pretty thick book, huh?

Ahem. Yes. I'm terribly sorry for the pain I put you through, but please know that I am now thanking you from the bottom of my heart, because your words of encouragement were the ones that made me push on at my dream to become a writer. Now, four years later, my beloved Caliger is now called Collinsmere, and dear Christian, the MC, is not the bumbling pre-adolescent servant boy he started out as, but a dashing 19th century detective with a bit of a genius streak, and I am finally beginning to write the story that I have always wanted to.
You might be familiar with Eloquence, one of my current projects, and though they are yet to get the formal introduction they deserve, three of the stars from Caliger appear in this new book as the beautiful characters I'd always wished they could be. Back then my young self just didn't have the creational talent that they were demanding. But now things are different!
I really do hope in a year's time (or two) I'll be writing again on this blog about writing, and I'll be able to tell you that if you walk into a particular bookstore and go to a particular shelf you will see a book with my name on it. It probably won't be Eloquence ... that story took four years to formulate and I expect it will need another four to become a real work of art, but I'm telling you, the time is coming! I'm getting there. It's rather exciting. It will still take time, of course, but I'm finally get to the point where I can say, this will happen. And it's pretty darn awesome. :)
I suppose the funny thing about this post is that one day I'm going to look back on the stories I wrote when I was seventeen/eighteen and still be going 'what?', but hey, I'll only have something to look back on if I keep writing now. :)

All my story idea notebooks, dating from 2006 to the present.

I'll leave this post with one last thing - you might notice some new additions in my sidebar. Yes, I've got word count progress meters! You can see my current projects and how much I've written on each one, and what the current goal for them stands at. Please leave a comment for me if you notice that the bars haven't moved for a while ... it'll urge me to keep writing!