In Which Imogen Shares Where She's At With Her Writing

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If you read my last post, in which I listed ten of my resolutions for this year (which you can view HERE), then you may have seen that one of my resolutions for 2016 is to share more about my own writing on this blog. It’s a bit of a scary goal, because for me, it’s so much easier to talk about writing as an abstract process than it is to share the intimate details of my personal projects. But I am determined to give it a go. Hopefully some of you will find these more personal posts interesting to read. So today, I thought I’d talk a little about where I am at the moment with my writing.

After NaNoWriMo last year, I decided to take the entire month of December off from writing. Mostly because December is the busiest time of year what with Christmas, the school holidays, and many, many musical commitments, but also because, after writing 175k odd words in a month, I really needed to give myself a break from writing and creating and just let my tired brain relax and become reinspired. And the rest was really nice, and definitely needed. But I have to admit, by the end of the month, I was missing writing a lot.

Now that we’re into the new year though, I’m trying to get a start on editing one of my books again, which so far has meant pulling out my superhero/fairytale rewrite, Snow and reading it through, making notes as I go. It’s always quite an experience reading through a drafts after a long time away. Sometimes a very cringe worthy experience at that. Snow is only a second draft, so I wasn’t expecting beautiful prose or anything like that, but the amount of melodrama, info dumps, and exposition I can pack into even just the first three pages is quite staggering, and frankly makes me wince to read it. I definitely know one of the big areas I’ll be working on in this draft.

But at the same time, even though I know the writing is terrible and half the plot still won’t make sense, I’m really excited to dive back into this story world. Snow is the first book in a whole series of fairy tale rewrites I have planned. It’s a huge project, seriously. But I really love the ideas, the characters, and the whole way I’m trying to present these fairy tales. I grin to myself every time I manage to work another fairy tale element into the book. I have a picture in my head of where I want these stories to go, and every word I rewrite, every time I cringe at a melodramatic line, or stumble across another plot hole, is getting me one step closer to reaching that goal.

So that’s where I’m at with my writing at the moment. Progress is pretty slow as I ease my way back into writing and start slotting it back into my schedule, but I’m enthusiastic about getting to work on editing again, or any kind of writing really. I’m hoping to have an excerpt or two to share in the next couple of weeks, when I get to actually editing the book properly, so we’ll see what happens.

Where are you up to with your writing? Do you have a book idea, or a series idea that you’re in love with? Are you interested in reading more post like this about my personal writing in addition to the other posts I write for this blog? Let me know in the comments!

Also, have you taken my blogging survey yet? If you haven’t, and you have a few minutes to spare, please consider checking out this post and giving me some feedback on this blog. The survey is only short, and your feedback will help me better plan what I’m going to write on this blog this year.