Meme #1 - a writing life
I didn't promise to do these in any order! So let's begin with ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marginaliana, who asked: "I'd love to hear about your long term writing goals. Where do you see your writing life ten years from now, if you think that far ahead?"
Ten years ahead!
Here's the scary part - ten years ago, I was at about the beginning of my writing life. I was seventeen, and I'd been writing since I was twelve, so perhaps not the very beginning, but I wrote a story around that time - Walking Barefoot to Palestine - which apart from making me some friends who have stayed with me for years (hi, Sal!), has the dubious honour of being one of the first stories I ever wrote that I can still bear to look at. I've always thought that year marked a turning point: the year my writing became less about ALL MY FEELINGS and more about a craft I worked at, though one with enough feelings to keep me going for another decade and half-million words. I have no formal training as a writer beyond, er, A-level English and Legal Draftswomanship 101, but that ten years has been an education: I've written and edited and been edited and practised and played and tried things and written a few things I'm proud of and a few that were terrible but enormous fun and generally had the time of my life.
I've also written a novel and published some short stories, but - I did both of those this year. At the beginning of 2014, I resolved to get some original publication credits, and I did that, and finally finished the novel last month to boot, though it's out being looked at right now - so here's what I hope for ten years' time. To be able to look back at me-at-twenty-seven as I do now at me-at-seventeen, and say: that was a great time in my life, a time of transformation. Not quite so much transformation, perhaps - I think there's probably more change in a life, writing or otherwise, between seventeen and twenty-seven than there is at other times - but certainly change, and trying and learning new things. And one thing I have very recently started doing is thinking of myself as a writer. Not just a fanfic writer or just as someone who has a hobby to fit around my day job or just, anything - but a writer, someone who writes, a lot, every day. I look forward to meeting the version of myself who's been sustained by that thought for such a length of time.
We shall see.
marginaliana, who asked: "I'd love to hear about your long term writing goals. Where do you see your writing life ten years from now, if you think that far ahead?"Ten years ahead!
Here's the scary part - ten years ago, I was at about the beginning of my writing life. I was seventeen, and I'd been writing since I was twelve, so perhaps not the very beginning, but I wrote a story around that time - Walking Barefoot to Palestine - which apart from making me some friends who have stayed with me for years (hi, Sal!), has the dubious honour of being one of the first stories I ever wrote that I can still bear to look at. I've always thought that year marked a turning point: the year my writing became less about ALL MY FEELINGS and more about a craft I worked at, though one with enough feelings to keep me going for another decade and half-million words. I have no formal training as a writer beyond, er, A-level English and Legal Draftswomanship 101, but that ten years has been an education: I've written and edited and been edited and practised and played and tried things and written a few things I'm proud of and a few that were terrible but enormous fun and generally had the time of my life.
I've also written a novel and published some short stories, but - I did both of those this year. At the beginning of 2014, I resolved to get some original publication credits, and I did that, and finally finished the novel last month to boot, though it's out being looked at right now - so here's what I hope for ten years' time. To be able to look back at me-at-twenty-seven as I do now at me-at-seventeen, and say: that was a great time in my life, a time of transformation. Not quite so much transformation, perhaps - I think there's probably more change in a life, writing or otherwise, between seventeen and twenty-seven than there is at other times - but certainly change, and trying and learning new things. And one thing I have very recently started doing is thinking of myself as a writer. Not just a fanfic writer or just as someone who has a hobby to fit around my day job or just, anything - but a writer, someone who writes, a lot, every day. I look forward to meeting the version of myself who's been sustained by that thought for such a length of time.
We shall see.
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Also: congrats on finishing the novel! That's huge!
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It's interesting to see when and how different people start putting on this mantle. Thanks very much for answering my question!
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This was all interesting to read, but the above part in particular struck a chord with me. What a great thing to do, and how wonderful to know you have that to look forward to down the road. I am inspired.
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