Write Away

First novel at 16! I'm really impressed. When I was a teenager I really wanted to write but I had this idea that writers were far above me, almost semi-mythical beings, and I didn't have the nerve. Little did I know.

I also had the idea that it would be better to get some life experience before I started writing, so that my first stuff wasn't embarrassingly terrible. Now I realise that that happens whatever age you start writing at, unless you're some sort of fluke.

Thanks so much for your encouragement. I've been working at some shorter stories in the last few days, working up my courage again.

I hope I do feel like it's an achievement when I've finished. I worry that I might find it the opposite.

The first time I ever had an original short story published, the publishers edited it to hell. Really, I have no idea what they were trying to do. It no longer was coherent. My friends and family asked me what had happened, and they hadn't even read the original. When I explained the changes, they all went "oh, yes that would have made a lot more sense as it was."

That experience put me off a lot of aspects of writing, vor quite a while. I turned to fanfiction, which gives the writer much more control. If I ever do publish an original novel, it will be self-published for definite.

I have a journalist friend and she has horror stories of how her pieces have been edited over the years. Editors change quotes for instance, seemingly at random, so that she has to go back and apologise to those she interviewed. It's the publishing equivalent of spellcheck disasters, except that these people are supposed to know their jobs.

Anyway, thanks!