Lost and Found

Hello blogging world, I have returned!

Now I am not sure why I left in the first place... actually yes, now that I think about it I kind of do know why I left. 

I think perhaps I need to tell you.

In 2014 I wrote a pretty awesome book. It took me quite a while to edit it as I was working full time and I paced myself. This was a book I knew had superb potential. It was the one I was putting out to the universe as "the one that will get published." It was and still is a great book, but here's where I hit a snag. In 2015, right as I was coming to the end of my editing cycle for my YA book that I was so very positive about, I saw an announcement on Publisher's Marketplace for a novel that was very similar to my own. Yikes.

I mean.. similar world, similar premise and crazily.. exactly the same title. Someone even commented on a writing forum, that it sounded just like my book *facepalm*. I am not the only one who noticed. 

Yeah. 

So what to do?

I mean this was the one.

I loved this novel and the characters so much.

I'd spent hours and hours writing and editing so that it was the story I really wanted to tell. 

Where do I go to from here?

Now I know what you would want to hear folks, that I spent a day eating copious amounts of chocolate and candy, crying into my pillow, but then I picked myself up and moved on. 

Not so much. I hate to admit it, but I was a little broken. 

In my case, I gave up. Not consciously, but when I look back I really did throw it all to the side. I stopped writing. My passion turned into a chore. I didn't want to write anymore and to be honest, why should I, if it all was for nothing? If someone else at the end of the day was going to achieve my dream. For the last year I have been suffering from anxiety and panic attacks. I have been letting it all get to me. All the little things that I never bothered myself with have suddenly become a blockage to me living life the way I used to. It's only now that I am putting this all down into words that I realise that in that one moment, the moment that I read the description of "the other" novel, things changed for me. I didn't want them to, but let's face it. Shit happens.

I have been struggling to get back to that place where I feel comfortable writing again. July last year I went to LA for a holiday and I came up with a fab idea. Hey, what if I wrote a screenplay! It was something different and new, but I did not have any idea of what to write or how to start. I was a screenplay novice. I shelved the idea for another six months while I went through the emotional ups-and-downs I was dealing with, but eventually I came back to the idea. 

Then 2016 arrived. 

That was the next major trigger. Another year had gone by. It was not the best year for me, emotionally. I felt like I hadn't grown and I had gone backwards. Many steps backwards. 

On Saturday 2nd January, I opened up Scrivener and started a brand new project. 

A screenplay. 

I read all I could about formatting, and how to plot out a spec script. I thought about what story I could write. This time, it was an adult story. I couldn't quite convince myself to go back to YA, but that's okay. Any story would do. On Sunday 17th January, I wrote the full outline of my plot. And then I started to write again. 

I have been writing on-and-off since. I am not writing every day, but I am writing again. I am half way through my screenplay. Somehow, I have found a spark of that passion again. It is not a full-blown love affair like I had with my last novel. But it is becoming so. I am falling in love with what I am creating and that is a huge step toward finding my voice again. And finding myself.

I have just signed up for Camp Nano this year. I am hoping to write the second half of the screenplay by the end of April. At least 10,000 words. It's a big goal, considering the first half has taken two months to write. But I want to try again. I want to write. 

And frankly, that's an accomplishment in itself.