Hello
Phew! I finally got through reading this thread last night.
Thanks to all of you - especially, but not only, Uncle Jim - for a very informative and interesting read.
I'm 31 years old and European (specifically half Welsh, half English). I run my own business with my husband. We provide services to the publishing industry - software development, editing, proofreading and various incarnations these. Mostly, we work for educational publishers, rather than in fiction, although have edited a few novels in the past (not terribly good erotic fiction, which I stopped doing after one of them made me physically sick, and because it paid really, really badly). In theory, this could mean I have a bit of a headstart - but really all it means is that I might be able to find missing commas a bit more easily after putting the novel in drawer for a few months (certainly not before).
Anyway (this is a word I overuse in emails, letters and on posting boards - fortunately, I'm aware of this, so it doesn't tend to start every paragraph in my fiction), I used to write a lot, but had more or less a 10-year break, for no apparent reason. I had a couple of poems published in a local poetry magazine, when I was 18. But that's it. I've recently started to get back into writing and have a number of novels on the go - though some of these are only at the very initial idea stage.
My main problem is getting down to the BIC. Working for myself, I have considerably varying workloads. Sometimes, I can have a few weeks where I only need to do a couple of hours' work a day; other times (e.g. the last month) I have to work 15-hours a day or more. Last Thursday, for example, I had to get up at 4am and work straight through to 5pm to complete two jobs in time for the deadlines. I then collapsed into a vegetable-like state alternating between watching TV, reading (including reading this thread) and sleeping for a few days, before starting on the next project.
The problem is the variability of my workload and working hours, therefore. Getting up 2 hours early is already a strategy that is being used to get my actual work done. Some days I can find 5 or 6 hours to write. Some days all I can manage is a few minutes scribbling in my notebook before turning the light off and hitting the pillow. So, any tips on how to fit the BIC in (other than getting up 2 hours early)?
The other immediate problem I am facing with my writing is that I am consistently giving one of the characters (usually one of the main characters) a relative with a specific mental health disorder. There is no reason (from the story's point of view) to do this. I am clearly using it as some form of therapy (because, for the last few years, a very close relative of mine has been suffering from this disorder and it is therefore at the forefront of my mind). While I think that there could be a valid place for this in some novels (even perhaps in the ones I'm writing now - just in terms of character background) it seems to completely take over whenever I sit down and just write, write, write.
Does anyone else find something from their real life taking over their writing in this way? And, if so, do you have any tips on getting rid of it? Or perhaps I should use it instead of getting rid of it - write what you know? I'm wondering whether a) I need to write a short or even a novel with this issue at its centre (maybe just as a therapeutic exercise!) or b) go and find a therapist myself, so I can dump it on her, rather than in my writing!
As you will have noticed, I tend to ramble a lot. If I can say something in ten words, I will say it in 100 instead. Oddly, this does not always translate to my fiction writing. At least, I think so. I have yet to actually complete the 1st draft of a novel, let alone get to the stage where I edit out all the stuff that isn't needed (perhaps, when I do, I will find that I only end up with a 2000-word short story, rather than a novel!).
One more thing I want to say before I post this (rather huge) introduction, is that just because I'm an editor by trade, does not mean my posts will be free of typos and other errors. I could copy and paste this into Word and leave it sat there for a few days (or even a few hours) and then go back and edit it. I would probably find most of the errors and also cut it down to three or four sentences instead of a long ramble. But I'm afraid I save that kind of effort for my day job (and for my writing, too). This is in way of an apology for any glaring errors in the above. Please don't shout and say, 'She's not an editor! Look she should have used a semi-colon there and she doesn't know the difference between "their" and "there"!'
And hello, by the way.