addicted to writing

Writing Until It Hurts

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

When an idea explodes so loudly the book just writes itself..

Image by ha11ok from Pixabay

This is something I have written about before because this does happen to me every few books, but I just couldn’t resist talking about it again!

As you know, my next release The Dark Finds You (out on 9th January) can be read as a standalone but also ties up various storylines from some of my other books in a connected universe. Connecting some of my books up with characters and locations is something I really love doing! The Dark Finds You was such an easy and pleasurable book to write because the idea of how to link up some of my most beloved characters came so naturally that writing it felt like pure joy. It took six weeks and it felt like it wrote itself. This was back in 2023.

This also happened to me with Book One in the upcoming Black Hare Valley series. I wrote the first draft of book one in several notebooks over a six week period after we had a long-lasting power cut that prompted me to get writing. Each chapter led to the next and it just poured out of me. Most of the books that followed have been similar, although book 3 was a tricky one and book 5 still needs a lot of work.

Last week when I was reading through the paperback proof of The Dark Finds You to check for errors, I got addicted to the story once again. It brought back to me how much I love and understand these characters and before I know it my mind was asking questions. What if…? And then, what if…? You get the picture.

The thing is I did leave a few things a little bit open at the end of The Dark Finds You. I now wonder if I did that subconsciously because I still wasn’t ready to let go and say goodbye for good…

All I had to do was slightly alter the tiniest bit of dialogue in the novel for a part two to be possible…

The idea hit me like a bullet and exploded into pieces in my brain so violently I had to very quickly grab a notebook and write it all down before I lost anything. By Thursday last week I had outlined the whole novel chapter by chapter and could not resist writing chapter one in a notebook.

That was it then, and by Sunday night I had 30,000 words.

That’s a big word count for a four day period, but funnily enough we did have another power cut during this time that left me with no option but to write!

Extra scenes have obviously squeezed themselves between my original chapter outlines, but other than that, it is all unfolding exactly as it did in my head last week. Which makes it so incredibly easy… I can only describe it as like being in a trance and just letting it all pour out of me as fast as possible!

When it goes this well, it becomes very addictive. You just don’t want to stop or let anything get in the way of writing, when it is just begging to be written and the next chapter is constantly filling your head screaming to be let out.

I wrote so much over the weekend that it physically hurt. I think that is a new thing for me. My shoulders, neck, back and eyes were all begging for a break, but I just wanted to keep going. I had to force myself to stop.

It will slow down as the week ahead progresses because I have work and life to contend with, but I know I will feel the intense pull of it every day until I get to my laptop in the evening.

Obviously, it doesn’t always work like this! Last week before this all kicked off, I finally finished the first draft of my family mystery drama The 7th Child. This was a book that had been waiting its turn patiently for years and had the plot, location and characters all mapped out ready to go. It went well to start with but it didn’t burst out of me in the same way and by the end of that first draft I hated it! I have figured out how to fix it though.

So, it’s not always like magic. Sometimes it is much harder work.

Which is why it is always worth celebrating the joy of it going so well!

My Writing Ban Didn’t Last Long…

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

Some months ago I gave myself a writing ban. I had so many projects on the go, all at different stages, plus new ideas invading my mind all the time and I just had to make myself stop.

Juggling multiple writing projects seems to be the way I work. It used to worry me a lot. I used to think it was not a good thing; not for me or my writing. Then I realised that it was all working out, in its own haphazard way. Having a few things running alongside each other doesn’t seem to stop the books getting written or published, so why was I worrying so much?

Image by Theodor Moise from Pixabay

The thing is, I write books quickly. I might get the idea a few years before I get around to starting it, and by then I’ll have all the character bios in place, plus most of the plot and locations, research and so on. But once I start it, once I sit and write the title followed by ‘chapter one’, I am usually on a roll. Three months for a first draft is my average although last year I completed a first draft in seven weeks. That was a particularly addictive book to write!

Now, it might only take me a few months to write a book, but it obviously takes far longer than that to get it ready for publication. Once the first draft is done, there is the second, third, fourth and so on… revisions and editing, sometimes rewriting whole chunks or changing the tense or the perspective. That’s followed by beta reader feedback, yet more edits and revisions and then it’s off to the editor and proofreader…. more edits after that.

By now I’ll be working on blurbs and thinking about front cover designs. All of this takes time… Far more time than it took to write the first draft of the book. Usually, it will take between one and three years for me to publish a book after the first draft has been written.

What tends to happen with me is I can’t not write while my book is with beta readers or the editor. I can’t just sit there and do nothing. There is always another idea waiting for its turn, always another host of noisy characters demanding my attention.

So, while I’m waiting, I’ll write another book…

And eventually they really start to build up!

Image by Leopictures from Pixabay

Hence why I gave myself a writing ban. I was allowed to write flash fiction, poetry, articles and blog posts, but I wasn’t allowed to work on any new books or start writing any of my new ideas. And the reason for the ban was the amount of finished books I was waiting to publish. I don’t want to just churn them out, you see – I want to give each book the launch it deserves and that also takes time.

I had The Day The Earth Turned series ready to go. My plan was to release each book during the season it’s named after, so Book 1: Summer was released in June and Book 2: Autumn will be released in October. In between writing and editing that series, I also finished my sequel to The Mess Of Me, The Mess Of Us and the spin-off book from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, At Night We Played In The Road. These two books are part of a bigger universe and are connected to each other and the Holds End Trilogy and Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature. Because of these connections, I then had a new idea for a sort of crossover book, that would pull some of these characters together in one final story, ending their stories and the story of that universe… (You’ve guessed it, that was the addictive, 7-week book!)

I also typed up a zombie apocalypse book I’d started to pen in a notebook… It’s not finished but I wanted to type it up to keep it safe.

For about two years now I’ve also been adding notes/ideas and character bios to a notebook for a future book which will be called The 7th Child. As usual, I can’t ignore what pops into my head about this book, so I have to write things down in the notebook and just recently I ended up writing the first two chapters because, well, they were in my head. I’ve left it there though because although I know exactly what happens in this book, I haven’t quite figured out how to tell the story yet. So, I’m fine to leave this one alone until this becomes clear to me.

Image by 6689062 from Pixabay

My writing ban was now on very shaky ground… And finally, last week, I gave in completely.

Now, to be fair, I am not writing something new. It doesn’t work that way with me anyway. As I’ve already said, I’ll map out ideas, characters and plots for years sometimes before I get enough to start writing the first draft…

But about a year and a half ago I started writing a book called Black Hare Valley. It was another one I’d had in my mind for a few years. It had its own notebook as they always do. It even had a huge, beautiful map my son and I drew together when creating the town. We experienced a two week power-cut because of a storm and during that time I decided to start writing the book in notebooks. I didn’t have much of the plot ironed out, to be honest, but that didn’t seem to matter. It was one of those delicious and exciting books that just wrote itself. I soon had five large notebooks filled with the first draft and the book was out of my head.

Last week I realised that I didn’t really have anything to ‘work on’, other than any articles or poems that were in my head… I felt a bit lost.

I love getting absorbed in my own worlds. It’s what I most love about being a writer. I was missing that pull, missing having one world and its characters dominating my thoughts, following me about all day.

I thought… well, it won’t hurt, will it?

I need to type it up at some point. At least then it will be safely backed up on my laptop…

I’m not writing something new, am I? I’m just typing up…

Of course now I am well and truly lost. I have been sucked into Black Hare Valley just as I was when I wrote it the first time. I love it. I am so, so happy. I think my writing ban was a stupid idea! I might as well keep writing in my usual obsessive way. It’s the only way I’ll get all these books out of my head before I die!

So, the writing ban didn’t hold. And I’m much happier!

Next week I’ll be blogging about something strange I’ve noticed about writing though… It’ll be interesting to see if anyone else has experienced the same thing.

See you then and thanks for reading!

Still Lost In My Own Little World

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

Me, aged twelve – thinking about my story at school, staring out of the window, barely listening to the teacher, barely aware of the world around me, filling my rough book with ideas and pieces of dialogue because my characters think the school day is a perfectly appropriate time to start talking to me. Rushing home, backpack bouncing against my shoulders, breathlessly running through the door to complete my chores before the rest of the day is mine. Me, in my room, music on first. Guns ‘N’ Roses at that age, thumping out from my hi-fi music system on the floor. My desk, an old coffee table, me on my knees, hunched over reams of scruffy A4 lined notepaper. A whole folder of one boy’s story, one boy’s scary world which would over time morph into an entire universe of my making.

Me, feeling excited to the point of explosion. Fixating entirely and completely on the story growing before my eyes under the frantic movement of my powerful biro. Pouring out the ideas and scenes that have bombarded me all day at school. Not a part of me is wondering what else I might have missed, from teachers, friends or society itself. Because I am removed and detached from all of that. That’s the background, the white noise, the distraction and this – this is real.

There were always other stories too, a constant stream of words and action. Sometimes I would sit at the breakfast bar in the kitchen with an old transistor radio to keep me company. I’d be lost in there, utterly gone. A ghost in this world but the puppet master of my own. I’d come back when I had to, with drowsy reluctance. What was there for me in this world? Terrible school, awful people, tedious chores and pointless homework. My parents rowing, doors slamming, people leaving, accusations flying, money draining away. I didn’t want any of that. I did not, in the words of Tom Waits, wanna grow up.

So, I didn’t. I broke free. I bucked the trend. Broke the rules. Did what all of them told me not to. I became a writer. And not much has changed. I have a foot in each world but most of my thoughts and dreams happen in my own one. As a child people used to say I was in my own little world and I guess they thought that one day I would grow out of it. Nah. I became a writer.

And it’s just the same now, as I hurtle back from the dreaded school run, a day off stretching ahead of me, dogs to walk, ideas to hold onto. I get to the laptop, get to my stories, to my own little world as fast I can. The world is bigger now – it’s a universe! I have sixteen published titles and eleven of those occur in the same universe. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side was my obsession as a child and a teenager. That story, those characters guided me through my youth and gave me a much needed escape route from reality. No wonder they mean so much to me. No wonder I am reluctant to let go. The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, the Holds End trilogy, The Mess of Me, Elliot Pie’s Guide To Human Nature and Bird People and Other Stories have all grown out of my obsessive writing as a twelve year old. I’d love to go back and tell her! And at the moment, the same universe continues to expand with three more books I am working on side by side. Again, I think twelve year old me would be amazed!

At the moment I am working on the fourth draft of At Night We Played In The Road which is a spin-off book from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series. Two characters are introduced in book five of the series and I loved them so much I decided to give them their own book. A while back I penned a start to a sequel to The Mess Of Me, which was my debut novel in 2013. I finally finished it recently and as both these new books happen in The Boy With The Thorn In His Side universe, writing them inevitably led me to one final story. A crossover story, which I am currently on the second draft of. This book, The Dark Finds You, brings Danny from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, Leon from The Mess Of Me, Bill from the Holds End trilogy and Elliot from Elliot Pies Guide To Human Nature together in one story about a missing boy. It happened naturally and inevitably, I feel, because storylines that run through all those books have tangled my characters up together in the same dark criminal world where youngsters are lured into running drugs for older, criminal gangs and all of this comes to a head in the crossover book. It really finishes off Danny’s story too – from the boy I created aged twelve, to the man he is now – this last story ties everything up with no loose ends left hanging. Once these next three books are released, it really will be the end for that universe.

I will be both happy and sad but other worlds are calling! Plus, I don’t want to drag it out forever! This last book really will tie everything up perfectly and it’s been a very satisfying one to write. I think it is the fastest and easiest book I’ve ever written. It took just six weeks to complete the first draft and it just sort of wrote itself!

So, I’d like to pay homage to my obsessive twelve year old self. Thank goodness you didn’t give up. That goodness that drive to write was there every single day, upon opening your eyes! You didn’t know then what it would lead to but you did know you were addicted!

And I’m extremely happy and grateful to still be lost inside that world of my own making. It’s the best place to be.

Addicted To Writing Or A Maladaptive Daydreamer?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 13 Comments

My name is Chantelle and I am addicted to writing.

Or at least it feels that way… like a drug, a high, like something I crave for and cannot live without…

It’s always like this but its worse when a new story has truly captured me. Last week I blogged about the reasons people stop writing, and I mentioned that as a child and teenager, I wrote constantly and endlessly, before having a 10-year gap where I barely wrote at all. The way I am now is exactly the way I was as a kid and I recently discovered that it may even be a clinical condition. Maladaptive daydreaming is where people daydream so intensely that they subconsciously leave this world for one of their own creation. Within these made-up worlds, they create characters and storylines that they replay and tweak in their heads for their entire life. One person in this article https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/28/i-just-go-into-my-head-and-enjoy-it-the-people-who-cant-stop-daydreaming described it as like putting Netflix on and I relate to that in a big way.

Image by Pheladi Shai from Pixabay

As a child, I was nicknamed cloth-ears by my parents because it appeared I was never listening. I was the daydreamer, the one never paying attention, the one in her own little world. At some point, around the age of eight, I realised I could write these daydreams or stories down and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I am at the mercy of the characters who live in my head and the drama that surrounds them. I identified so strongly with the people in the interview that the only difference between us was that I write my daydreams down and publish them as books! I kind of think these people are missing a trick if they don’t do the same!

I’ve blogged before about The Boy With The Thorn In His Side series, and how the characters grew in my head at the age of twelve. I’d lie in my bed at night and move them around, like watching a film that I was in control of. I still do this now, every night. As that series will soon have a spin-off and a crossover book, I think it’s safe to say that my daydreams truly have control of me. I’m not sure whether I am addicted to writing, or whether I am an intense maladaptive daydreamer, but just in case you are curious, this is what it feels like:

  1. I can’t stop thinking about my story from morning until night. I wake up with an urge to write and a head load of possible scenes and conversations and then I go to bed and lie awake, dreaming up more. Every night I fall asleep with my characters in my head.
  2. I can switch between worlds with ease. One moment I will be fully submerged in my created universe, hearing their voices, seeing their movements, picking up on every facial expression or nuanced gesture, and the next I’ll be back in reality, teaching a class, paying for shopping, filling the car up with petrol. My mind seems to know when to switch back without too much disorientation.
  3. Having said that, I do sometimes find it hard to concentrate on other things and this is especially tricky when I am writing a new story that is going well. Some stories take time and patience and lots of rewriting, whereas some of them just write themselves. Those are the best but they do make it harder to switch between worlds. At the moment, my WIP is completely taking me over to the point of obsession, and I find it is all I can think about. I find myself drifting off into noticeably thicker daydreams when it’s like this…
  4. I get a nervous feeling in tummy, because I am scared I’ll not do it justice. The story plays out like a film or a TV show in my head and it looks perfect. Perfect locations, settings, characters and dialogue. Fight scenes look flawless yet realistic, dialogue is spot-on, facial expressions are just right and if I could just encapsulate it as it is in my head, it would be perfect. Yet the tricky bit is writing it and trying to make it how it is in my head so that the reader can see what I see. I am never sure I am up to the job and this can make me feel quite anxious at times.
  5. It feels like having a movie on pause when I’m not writing. When I’m not writing, I feel quite torn away from it, quite lost. It’s like I’ve been forced to put a good book down when I am dying to find out what happens next,. It feels like leaving a movie on pause. They are all just frozen until I can think about it or write it again.
  6. I can’t wait to get back to it. The frustration I feel when I cannot think about my stories, or write them, is quite awful at times. I don’t really want to live in this world, but I have to. Because of this, I am constantly longing to get back to my world, constantly pining for it and missing it when I’m not there.

Whether I am addicted to writing or just an intense daydreamer who writes them down, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Writing has saved me time and time again and without it I know I would struggle. What about you? Were you nicknamed a daydreamer as a child? Do you still daydream? Do you write them down? Feel free to comment and share!