Discovery Continued

I look back to that time now and realise that I was confident of being on the right path but so insecure about my new passion. I spent a full year writing a novel and when I finished it, I went and did a writing for children's course. I consider it now to be ridiculous but at that time like I said, I was insecure about my abilities as an author or whether I had a right to even call myself an author. At that time I had been working in construction for 18 yrs, it was all I knew. Sadly it's now been 31yrs in construction.

Whoops I'm getting off the track, I don't regret doing the course it was great and the course was fronted by a terrific lady whose name was Paulette Gee. Paulette was wonderful, she was enthusiastic, supportive and she made the course enjoyable. Out of approximately 25 people who did the course, I was the only one that had completed a novel. I remember Paulette asking me what had I previously written and me telling her 'nothing, apart from the 4 pages of my life which I called the candle.' I promise I will post it on this blog.

Paulette was intrigued and asked if she could read some of it. Well back then and as today I always carried my work with me, just in case I manage to trap someone in a corner and could hold them there long enough to show them my latest work. She said she would like to read the first three chapters.

Still discovering

I spent every spare moment I had over the next year writing my story, which by now had taken on a new name. "Johnny Marsh Supernatural Investigator." I did things I never thought I'd do, like research. At school I found study to be alien to me but with this new found passion I found a reason to do it and loved it, everything I read up on was inspiring me and filling me with new directions for my book to follow. So much so that before I'd even finished the first book another four novels had sprung up and were demanding to be written, I have completed a couple of them and I'm pleased with the results they are completely different to the first book. They are adult, very adult and were incredibly satisfying to write.

Before I finished the first book I knew that this is where my future lay, I look back now and see I was a man possessed, no wonder I scared my wife. I had never done anything like this before, she suddenly had a stranger in the house who's life was being consumed by the book monster. The man she knew so well had been replaced with someone completely different. He looked like me and spoke like me, but he wasn't acting like me. Neither my wife or myself realised that I was going through the biggest growing period of my life, discovering I was creative was really wonderful, I truly love this side of myself and have learned to nurture it and feed it with the things in life I never did before, like pampering myself, just simple things like burning scented candles while I wrote and spending a day alone with my thoughts. I found that I had a new appreciation for all things creative and artistic. After working on my own novel for a year, I started to appreciate just how hard some people work on their own projects, and how much of themselves they put into it.

Discovering I could write

I had just turned 33 yrs old & I confronted my demons, something I will address in future blogs. I realised that for most of my life I had been running on hurt, anger & hatred, all the wrong things. After losing all of that I felt extremely empty inside, I wished I hadn't done it. I was lost with no clear direction, it was so hard to concentrate on anything. I was walking around like a zombie, the emptiness was worse than the hurt I had been carrying.

It was at that time that we bought our first personal computer, quite decrepit by today's standards. I originally bought it to play the latest video games, but I was drawn to the word processing programs. I tinkered with them and started to write about myself. I wrote four pages, it wasn't specific nor did it name names. I have had comments that it was the saddest thing some people had ever read, but I needed to get it out. Once I did get that out the flood gates seemed to open and I had a need to start writing again. I started writing a story called, "Johnny Marsh Monster Hunter."

It was never meant to be a novel or anything, all it was ever going to be was a short story I could be proud of and perhaps get to read to kids if I got the chance. As I started writing the characters started to grow and so did the story it was incredible, I had never experienced a rush of creativity like this in my life. It was exhilarating and completely unexpected. The cloud that had been surrounding me was lifting and a path was now opening up in front of me a path I didn't think existed.

Intro

Hi I'm Kev, I have set up this blog being completely clueless as to what I'm going to say or do. That's pretty much like my writing, I have no plan or clear direction to follow, I go where the path takes me. I was told early in my career that to write a novel you must spend months planning your novels and getting to know your characters. I sat there thinking "what a waste of time" in six months I could almost have my novel written. That is of course, providing you have that amount of time to work on your project.

Most writers who are reading this will be like myself, still at their day jobs and trying to squeeze their writing in around their family life and work commitments. Believe me I know how tough it is, but there is nothing better than finding some time to yourself to enter your world and live life through your characters.