Sunday, March 16, 2014

Heart on a sleeve.....

A few posts back I asked for volunteers to make suggestions for the title of the short story I have just finished. Firstly, thank you to all those that took the time to read the story and offer opinions, we have a long list to choose from.

I'm not in a position to offer any advice around writing styles, or structure as the 'rules' for these are still unknown to me, but I'm getting there.

What I can do is relay the experience of writing the short story and the effect it had on me personally, which I wasn't prepared for.

In stark contrast to Russian Redemption, this story is best described as a Romance through the eye's of a twenty year old male (Drew) as he meets and falls instantly in love with Emma. It shares some of their experiences and relays some of the intense emotions that come with young love..... with a twist.

The word count is around the 9,000 mark.

The whole purpose of the exercise was to test my own abilities, to push my boundaries and to see if I was able to step across genres. I am still very new to this writing thing so I didn't have a great deal of confidence in a successful outcome, but it appears that I should be pleasantly surprised.

We're in the final stages of the preparation, the cover is almost sorted, I think there is one final edit to complete and it will be ready to publish.

Strangely though the 'story' is only half of THE story. Y'see to be able to get back in touch with those emotions I had to travel a long way back in time, thirty one years to be precise. This in itself was difficult for me, I had locked those emotions and memories away for good reason, but in order to have any chance of successfully completing this 'challenge' I had to go back and dance with the proverbial devil.

What surprised me the  most was how raw those emotions were, still! Thirty one years and it was as if Pandora's box had wrapped them in preservative, everything was as I had left it. The story is fictional in so much as I have invoked artistic creativity, but the memories are very real. I used those memories to feed my writers imagination but I was very aware that I was 'feeling' them all over again. Trying to harness the thrill, the energy and the exuberance of young love, and scribe it in such a way that the reader can share it, is not easy and my hat goes off to those romance writers that manage it book after book.  There are some real highs in the story, and there are some real lows - this is the roller coaster.

Once 'in tune' I was able to write the story in a day (although obviously there has been a number of edits and re-edits since) but it took a lot longer to shut the lid on Pandora's box! I ran the original story past a couple of friends, and my proofreader/editor for opinions, again all was positive, in fact a little too positive. Nearly all suggested that the story be lengthened to a full novel, all said that they wanted more. These were good indicators for me. To be honest I was never expecting to actually publish the short story, it was always more of an exercise for me.

Like most authors I revisited the story time and again, looking for those little details that didn't belong, or adding a word here or there that improved it or that I felt was important. As always Judi had an influence on the penultimate version that got sent out to people so at least that way I knew they would be reading a well edited (if not yet perfect) story.

I discovered that it can be dangerous to draw upon your own experiences from yesteryear, it can play tricks on the mind. Whilst it was a great feeling to submerge myself in the 'happy' bits, to be fair to the book I had to be just as submerged in the 'unhappy' bits - that wasn't so great. It's taken me a good couple of weeks to sweep all of those feelings and emotions back up and deposit them back in Pandora's box, and I think that is the true reason why I couldn't find the right title - I wasn't prepared to go back.

I never knew, or suspected, that writing a short story could be so difficult; think of a topic, come up with a strong character and chuck some idea's about - boom - story. Nah! I suppose this is the difference between a good story and a great story. I did mention that when I was writing Russian Redemption I had been surprised at how the emotion coming out of the story had effected me; with this short story I was caught out by how the emotion being injected into the story effected me. Oh the emotional turmoil of a writers life.

Anyway, the short story is virtually complete so I anticipate it being published as an e-book on Amazon in a couple of weeks. If you would like to be notified of the release or to pre-order, or just grab a snippet, sign up through the website www.ajwilsonbooks.net/ newsfeed.


4 comments:

  1. What an honest post, Andrew! I have not done romance of any intensity myself, but I can imagine that had I done so, It might have stirred up a few conflicting memories! Good for you for going for it!

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  2. This Post just about sums up what writing this book has allowed you to do, and that's open up! Taking them trips down memory lane will be both exhilarating and painful, and emotional journey that has probably helped you as a person and an author! You should be proud! We certainly are!

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