Well, here we are in the final week of the ‘Write Life’ guest blog series, and what a great two months it’s been! Our last, but not least, guest blogger is Nola Passmore, co-founder of The Write Flourish, enthusiastic encourager, poet and devotional extraordinaire, a/professor in a past life, fan of fur-pals and general good gal. Today she’s sharing insights from her skillful writing repertoire, but don’t be surprised if she gets a bit ‘shorty’ on us along the way. 😉
My shorts have found themselves tucked away in lots of nooks and crannies. Before you get too alarmed, I’m talking about short written material – poetry, devotions, short fiction, true stories, and magazine articles. I’ve had some degree of success, with more than 140 pieces published. However, last year I decided to start a novel. How hard could it be? Two years and 34 000 words later, I’ve learned a thing or two.
1. Writing a novel is hard. I now have a greater respect for novelists and think twice before criticising them for the odd slow passage, convoluted sentence or inconsistency. After all, I had my hero stepping out of a car on one page and then had the car pulling into the kerb to let him out on the next.
2. Persistence is key. If I tire of a short story, it’s no big deal. I can toss it out or leave it in a drawer until inspiration strikes. But if I’m part way through a novel and give up, that’s a huge investment of time and effort. There’s no kudos for writing half a book. You have to keep going.
3. Pride is an ugly taskmaster. I feel I have a good story that could challenge people to stand against injustice. However, my pride’s also at stake. There’s a little voice in my head that says I won’t be a ‘real’ author until I’ve had a book published. It would also be downright embarrassing not to finish, given the number of people who know I’m writing a novel. I need to constantly check my motives to ensure I’m penning my blockbuster for the right reasons.
4. Shorts add up. Just because you need to do more research and sort out the next bit of the plot, it doesn’t mean you can’t add anything to your novel for four months. (Oops … yes, that was me. Back on track now). Remember that a book is made up of chapters, scenes, paragraphs and sentences. Each small piece adds to the whole and keeps the project puttering along.
5. Never underestimate the God Factor. There have been many times when I’ve thought, ‘Who am I trying to kid? I’m not a novelist. I don’t know what I’m doing. EEK!’ But then I remember that God put this story on my heart. When I’ve been unsure of the next plot turn or how to fix a literary glitch, it’s amazing how he just seems to pop a solution into my mind. Trust that if He prompts you to do something as crazy as writing a parallel narrative spanning four continents and two time periods, He’ll also give you the means to complete the task.
Writing a novel has certainly hurled me out of my comfort zone, but it’s been worth every minute. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to decide whether my heroine gets blown to smithereens in the Halifax Explosion of 1917.
Nola Passmore is a writer of shorts, a would-be novelist, and the originator of many a hare-brained scheme that she inflicts on family and friends. She loves exploring different facets of creativity and encouraging others to develop their God-given talents. She and her husband Tim have their own freelance writing and editing business called The Write Flourish. You can find her writing tips blog on their website: www.thewriteflourish.com.au
