This is my first ever post acknowledging my desires to become a published author. Admittedly, it’s daunting. For so long, it’s been a quiet dream, an aspiration that was always sitting in the future, forever a fancy just in the distance, out of reach.
As of right now, I’m still at university, but I’ve only got a few weeks left, and given our current circumstances and as the plans I previously had are a little… impossible because things have become seriously muddled over the past year, I don’t know what I’m going to do. For so long, I had envisioned just getting a regular day job and writing in my spare time until I was ready to send off a manuscript. I never considered starting a blog before most of what I plan to be my debut manuscript is still unwritten.
But I entered a writing competition recently, the first time under this name, and they said, if you win, we can link to your social media pages and website, and I didn’t have any of those things. Obtaining my Twitter handle and domain name as well as other social media platforms were plans I had for when I would be sending off my first book, building a following after I’ve got something physical for people to get behind. It never occurred to me to start building that alongside writing.
And then I thought, well, why not? I’m a bit of perfectionist, and the fact so many of these elements might be quite rudimentary and the fact I’m learning how to do this as I go along is really intimidating. I like to have everything prepared before I jump into things, but if I only ever do that, I might never even send off a book. It’s definitely daunting, but maybe it is for the best. I think it can be exciting to see how people grow, see how a journey progresses. I’ll look back on this one day and be pleased at where I’ve come from instead of cringing. I hope.
If you want some other facts about me, here are a few: I have an older sister, I’m from the UK, I have a black belt in karate. My first ever ambition when I was in primary school was to be an author, and it got a little muddled in secondary school when I planned to become an actor instead, but I think that was just because I fell in love with film and television and, in a lot of ways, actors tell stories too. But then I circled back around to wanting to write. I love stories and characters, I love conflict and relationships, I’m such an ardent enthusiast of self-discovery and identity and introspection. All of my stories thus far really have those concepts at their heart, and I love exploring those themes.
So, what’s the plan? Really, we’re doing this as we go along, seeing what works and what doesn’t. My plan is to update this blog about twice a month, on the first and fifteenth. These updates will switch between a general topic such as writing style, themes, various other concepts that I think discussing will inform you of me as a writer, and then I’ll also do updates about what I’ve been writing, where we are along the stage of creation, what topic I’ve been researching so the book/s seem more realistic and knowledgeable. Hopefully, this will motivate me too. There’s nothing quite like a public blog to keep you accountable and on top of a schedule.
At the moment, I’ve got two projects on the go. Well, that might not be quite accurate; I’ve actually got about a hundred stories on the go, but I’ve got two that are in the most developed stage; one is hopefully going to be my debut, labelled from now on as Project #1, and the other is a series of a much bigger scale, to be named for the moment as Project #2. They do actually have names, but, despite needing this blog to keep me accountable, a certain level of distance is probably required too. Balance, that’s what we’re aiming for.
For now, I think I’ll leave it here. I’m awaiting the results of the competition, but either way, whatever happens, just having this website is a step towards publication and authorship, and that’s equal parts exciting and daunting.
Robyn x
Robyn A. Howard 