First Novel Completed

So I’ve finished writing my debut novel, The Different. Good for me —yay!

Quite an achievement for someone who only learnt to write three years ago. Not that I was illiterate, far from it; I’d already waffled my way through a couple of unpublished  non-fiction books, film scripts and the expected raft of dissertations and magazine articles. But three years ago I learnt there was a craft to it. Before that, I could string a sentence together, even make sense, but I was oblivious to the words being any more than a means to deliver my ideas, the writing little more than an inconvenient step. I knew such a thing as good writing existed, I’d read and appreciated enough of it in my choice of fiction, but I never thought I could be a writer of such. Perhaps that was why I stuck to scripts for so long, why I never actually tried to publish anything.
Having the scales peeled from my eyes about the potential of my writing was a revelation. I remember being, not flattered as I should, but slightly stunned when Helen Shipman, my tutor at Falmouth, in her slightly admonishing tones commented how I could be a very good writer if I could write everything as well as the piece I’d just handed to her. I can trace it back to that point when I decided to learn the craft, hone it and perfect it; not as the medium through which my ideas are delivered, but with which they are painted.

I know that my skills as a marketeer, not those as a writer will be tested next, but for now I’d like to relish this milestone and celebrate a long worked-for achievement.