How to get started as a new writer
17th April 2020
As a freelancer used to short term contracts I’ve always found it difficult to fill the gaps with anything other than looking for my next job. As a creative person my head has always been full of ideas for stories but after jotting down the first few ideas they stayed in my ‘To Do’ pile for years.
This time, while searching the internet for jobs, two offers of free coaching sessions came to my attention. I signed up for a free online business coaching course, the first I’d ever signed up for in my life but was disappointed to find it consisted of nothing more than motivational therapy sessions. I thought they were going to actively help me find new contacts, job offers and opportunities that I didn’t know about. Wrong! I did the sessions anyway, over four weeks, as they were free. The first one started with breathing exercises and was all about ‘My Journey’, the second about my ‘Inner Tiger’ and the third about my ‘Road Map’. Hmmm. Definitely not what I expected.
The second course proved much more productive. The mission was to encourage me to actually put ‘pen to paper’ to start writing the stories that I had been thinking about for years and this was one-to-one coaching with a published writer. It started off well. On the first call my Writing Coach asked me what I wanted to write, who was it for and what particular age group. I admitted that I didn’t have the answers, I just wanted to write a children’s book. So my Writing Coach gave me a few bits of information that would help me pinpoint my audience then suggested that I should write a synopsis of my children’s story and the first 100 words ready for the second session the following week. Okay, I thought, this is more like it.
I persisted with the business course and one thing I came to realise, when having to do an exercise before the next webinar session, was that I was doing something called ‘self-sabotaging’ without knowing it. The task was to write down what the challenges were that were stopping me getting to my goal of finding a job. What was getting in my way? What was stopping me? I wrote down all the things that worried me each day: my age, my lack of contacts, other people’s age prejudices, the length of time since my last job, my out-of-date skills and knowledge. I can still remember the moment the next thought appeared at the front of my brain, ‘Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m getting in my own way!’ My next thought was, ‘Well, I don’t quite know how when my Sent Box is full of hundreds of job applications and an equal number of Rejections’, the result of my scattergun approach to getting any job at all. Hmmm.
Making Progress
Having had a career in broadcast TV production one thing I know about myself is that I’m motivated by, and never miss, other people’s deadlines and had put this on every job application. So one week later, in my second writing session, when I proudly offered to send my synopsis and first 100 words to my Writing Coach I was surprised and disappointed when she said, ‘no thank you’. The only thing I thought I knew about coaching was from watching sport. Tennis players and football teams had coaches who stood on the sidelines, watched the players, then gave advice on how to improve their game afterwards….. right? I quickly realised that if I wanted someone to read my work and give me professional feedback I’d have to pay them for their time, which was more than I could afford right then.
My Writing Coach suggested the next week’s tasks could be to write another 500 words of my children’s story, do research on social media for publishers, literary agents, other new writers, writers’ magazines and competitions, link to them and join writers groups who would often review each other’s writing for free. I discovered a whole new world of people who were excited about writing, new writers who were being published and established writers offering hints and tips. I also discovered that publishers defined precisely what they were looking for on their web sites so that I would be able to target my future submissions correctly.
I was excited by my progress and lucky in that, right at the same time, I had been asked to look after three animals for a friend while they moved house. There were no wages but I would get my board and lodgings. I wouldn’t have a job with an income but I would have time. I decided to eek out the contents of the larder and accept my situation. It was supposed to be for three weeks but as it turned out I ended up being a cat sitter for nearly three months.
I thought about the cats quite a lot. I understood them. They needed to eat, poo and sleep. I did not understand the ‘Inner Tiger’. I had great trouble understanding what it was doing inside me. Rather than being helpful the business coaching course was confusing. Was it something to do with fear? Everyone’s afraid of tigers, right? Wrong. Apparently, the tiger inside was helping to keep me safe. Hmmm. I felt my spirit sagging.
Writer’s block
In the third session with my Writing Coach I admitted that I had had a bit of a writer’s block the previous week and had found it difficult to progress with my children’s book text. Other practical problems had come up during the week that I had to deal with and my creativity had left me. My story so far had been written in rhyming couplets and try as I might I could not come up with any decent rhymes, so I had just written the next 500 words in the same line format but as prose. I promised I would go back and try to make the rhymes work after our call finished.
My Writing Coach agreed that this had been a good route through my writer’s block and then asked me to think again about what had stopped me putting pen to paper in the past. My main reason was that I had never had enough time. I had been a working single mum for thirty years. Now my kids were all grown up and getting on with their lives I thought I would have some time to write. However, what with looking for my next work contract, catching up with chores, doing some exercise and helping other people with their problems I managed to fill all of my time each and every day.
I went on to tell my Writing Coach that as a result I was always thinking, ‘I haven’t done enough background research’, ‘my characters are still a bit sketchy’, ‘I don’t know how it’s going to end’. I didn’t tell her that I was also subconsciously worrying, ‘maybe I’m not good enough’, ‘my story will be laughed at and I’ll be declared a fraud’. So the vicious circle of NOT putting pen to paper was complete. I stayed in my comfort zone. Then the penny finally dropped. My ‘Inner Tiger’ was satisfied. I’d been saved from danger and round and round I went. Ok, so I had to admit I had learned something useful from the Business Coaching.
After a few seconds of silence my Writing Coach said that I didn’t need to know all the background and back stories, that the reader would just believe that my characters existed in the world I created for them and, as in real life, you don’t know much about other people until a situation comes up when they reveal facts about their lives. Ok, I thought, well then, it’s just a matter of not having enough time.
Then my Writing Coach made the dramatic suggestion that I should, ‘Put my writing first!’ Wow! Really? Was I allowed to do that? Yes! Wow! That was an exciting thought but how was I going to do that when I still had so many demands on my time? My Writing Coach made her third suggestion – make a Writing Timetable and stick to it. Ok, right.
Writing timetable
As soon as that third coaching call ended I created my first Writing Timetable. It reminded me of my old school timetables. Monday-Friday were the same:
• 7am-11am – Yoga & Chores
• 11am-1pm – Writing
• 1pm-2pm – Lunch
• 2pm-4pm – Writing
• 4pm-5pm – Feed Cats, Quick Walk
• 5pm-7pm – Writing
• 7pm-8pm – Dinner
• 8pm-10pm – Admin & Research
• 10pm-11pm – Relax
On Saturday and Sunday I changed some of the Writing slots for a mixture of playing piano, going to the market, going for a walk, seeing friends etc. It only took about twenty minutes to make my timetable and then I just looked at it for another ten minutes. Ok, so this is going to change everything? Guess what? It did!
I looked at the time, it was 1.55pm on a Wednesday. I looked back at my timetable – 2pm Writing. So I went to the bathroom, topped up my glass of water, put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on my door and started reading through my prose to see what rhymes would appear. By the end of the day they were all done and I was so excited by my progress that the next day I obeyed my Writing Schedule precisely, and the next day, and the next day. I was so excited, the hours flew by and the words poured out of me.
In the fourth session, one week later, I proudly announced to my Writing Coach that I had not only finished the first draft of my children’s story, 1000 words, but that I had also written a second follow on book. She congratulated me and then sent me a link about a writing competition for Children’s Picture Book stories with a deadline coming up soon. As soon as that call ended I followed the link only to discover the deadline was midnight that same night! But hey, this is me, I’m motivated by other people’s deadlines. The competition guidelines were very specific about submissions being 800 words or less so I spent the next few hours editing my first story down to 799 words and sent it off by email just after 11pm.
Result
I didn’t make the shortlist but I honestly didn’t mind, I had written two stories in four weeks after seven years of thinking about them. The moral of the story is this, just start writing, do some every day, put your writing first, use competitions as motivational deadlines, be brave and seek out other writers for support. Get started!
by Kim Brooke 17th April 2020
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