Meandering along the writing path by Susan Sanderson

A (new) meandering path

At a Bible study group a few years ago, someone said, ‘You have to be doing something if you want God to guide you. He doesn’t move a parked car.’

It’s the same with writing. We have to sit down and write (or type) and hopefully the words will appear.

Perhaps as writers we need to really find out what works for us. Do we have ideas while we are engaged in other activities? Tasks around the home, knitting, drawing or local walks may give us the headspace to develop our ideas.

What do we really feel called to write? Perhaps it is fiction. Perhaps not. And what about genre?

My own writing journey has (so far) taken me on a meandering path. I began with the intention to write children’s stories and took a correspondence course. The problem was that I thought I could write, but I hadn’t really begun to practise the craft, although I had enjoyed researching the genre. After a few rejections I gave up in spite of winning a small prize for one story. (This was in the days before the internet. Every manuscript had to be posted out. Then there was a considerable delay before a publisher replied.)

About 30 years ago I started writing a memoir of my childhood. My experiences of living in the south of England and visiting friends and relatives in other parts of the country gave me insights into the North/South divide, which is now topical with ‘levelling-up’ projects. Impostor syndrome and life brought that to a standstill. My typescript was filed in a cupboard for many years.

Since I began working on it again I have added a lot of material. Last autumn I signed up for NaNoWriMo and wrote thousands of words in a month. For me this has probably been more trouble than it was worth. Trying to edit these isolated incidents into a coherent work is taking more time than if I had carried on more slowly.

Some of my blog posts written in response to writing prompts have relevance to my memoir. They were written with a different slant. More editorial work is needed to fit them in.

I have been encouraged to continue with this by members of one of ACW’s wonderful online groups. The part I read out was described as a detailed resource!

Then there is the question of time management. I enjoy blogging. Writing a few hundred words at a time suits me. Blogging opportunities distract me from my bigger project.

I also write poetry. An idea I have had for a poetry project is going to be time consuming. Some of the 250 poems in my poetry spreadsheet perhaps merit publication. (Two of them have appeared in Christian Writer.) How to have them published is something else I need to think about. Writing more is easier than working out a plan for submitting poems to editors or self-publishing them.

So with all those demands on my time, here I am writing a blog post (because it is relatively easy) to fill a vacant date on More than Writers.

How do you work best? At a particular time of day? In a particular place? And are you easily distracted as I appear to be?

Susan always wanted to be a writer.  In 2012 she revived her interest in writing with a blogging project to collect the kinds of sayings, which were much used in her childhood.

Susan experiments with factual writing, fiction, humour and poetry.  She does not yet have a book to her name. Her interests include words, languages, music, nature study and gardening  She has experience of the world of work, being a stay-at-home mum and an empty-nester.   She is active in her local community and Church. She and her husband live in Cumbria. 

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