the inner workings of a young writer

I'm an aspiring novelist in my early twenties studying at university for that all important degree.  My writing is focused mainly on The Dark Witch and Aurath but I have a tendency to get distracted with shiny new projects.  In quick I have dreams of being a full time writer but at the moment I'm aiming for a job in publishing.

As of October I'm back writing though I'm still slightly behind with The Dark Witch.  I also made an editing schedule for Aurath: The Eight which fell by the wayside when I realised I would have to rewrite the entire second half of the book.  I'm also back for my final year at uni so I imagine things will be slow going in the future.

In general news I'm planning on learning Japanese this year and I've have managed to save 1/3 of the money needed for the round-the-world trip I'm *fingers crossed* taking when I graduate.  I've also been looking into work experience at publishing houses and literary agencies.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, since the days when my best friend, and occasionally my neighbour from across the road, would gather at my house and make up characters and adventures.  Two particular stories stick out in my mind; one about triplets - the three of us each wrote one of them - who became stranded on a mysterious island after a plane crash (way before Lost).  The other was about a family living in the country where, again, we wrote one character each.  I think we managed about two or three chapters before we got distracted by whatever came along next.

After that, my best friend and I planned a story based on Final Fantasy VII and VIII in a combined world (not having heard of fan fiction at the time) and we drew the characters and wrote their biographies and typed up a few chapters on an electronic typewriter (we'd stepped up from paper).  Again we moved on, though I still have the drawings and biographies.

A few years later we began a serious joint project for an epic fantasy.  Her story would be about a princess who leaves home to rescue her kidnapped sister from an enemy kingdom with the help of a thief.  Mine would be about a witch who escapes imprisonment and goes on the run.  The two would meet up a forest.  We had more but that's about the basics of it.  She wrote two chapters of about 2,000 words for The Summoner's Daughter and I'm now on my third draft of The Dark Witch.  This is where I really started thinking seriously about being a writer.

When I was in my fourth year of secondary school, aged about 14-15, I had an idea for a parallel world where characters based on myself and some friends, including my still best friend, were kind of superheroes.  I later dropped the parallel world for a hidden world called Aurath, and the characters came into their own and became less like superheroes and more like real people...with powers. 

For the first time I showed my writing to someone other then my best friend, the person the character Isobel was originally based on, and she was amazed by how good it was (though whether that was a good thing or a bad thing I haven't decided) and The Eight was the first book I've actually finished.  I have planned the other books and am almost finished the second in the series, Witch Choice and have started on the third Daemon Archer.

Apart from The Dark Witch and Aurath, my two serious projects, I have begun a few other books, some I have high hopes for, others I know will never be published and some that need a major overhaul.

misswriter