On Writing

          I've always loved writing and it is something I've been probably doing for more than half my life. I have a vague memory of being about eight, and "borrowing" a couple of one of my sisters old business studies household budget books and writing really silly poems in it. I think one of the poems was about a naughty boy called Danny, but, to be honest, it was twenty years ago so not too sure.
          When I started secondary school I started writing a series of book based in France, lords and ladies of the chateaux's having affairs with servents kind of book and another one based in Inisteoge in Kilkenny that started off with the finding of a mysterious brooch. They were god awful, probably worthy of Mills and Boons if I rewrote them now (no offence to Mills and Boons).
           I also met my best friend in secondary school, who is also a writer, a Gothic one, and, to be honest if it wasn't for her encouragement, I probably wouldn't have kept going. We collaborated on a fantasy book based in ancient Greece. It was completely for fun, and I know I definitely had great craic working on it. Might have steal it back from her next time I'm in her house. I've got some ideas! (I'm not going on to study Classical Studies for nothing! ;) )
          I started writing my first fantasy novel when I was seventeen. I even remember that the idea came to me in a dream and the whole morning, especially on my train journey to school to do my Leaving Cert exams (I think it was my Maths exam) I worked the character out in my head an started forming the foundation of the story in my head. I'm still working on that story, eleven years later. It's getting a total revamp. Less characters for starters. It also inspired me to write more stories based in the same world, but hundreds of years later, and i've been working on one of them for about two and a half years now and the other probably close to five.
          At around the same time as I started to write my first fantasy, I also started to write a novel based in the 1940s/50s. Of course I made the mistake of writing it on my Bros old computer which had been given to my sister and one day her ex did a total formatting of the computer and I lost all two hundred pages or so. However, this is a story I decided to return to a couple of years ago, and have worked out enough of the story that it will span three books, first one set in 1930's New York, second one in 1940s Ireland, and the third one set in the 50s. I told the basic story line to a couple of lovely women I know who work/worked in a publishing house, and I think it was one of them that suggested it be spilt into three. Maybe I'll try get the first one out of the way this summer and send it off to be read...
          It's been along time since I've been properly able to sit down and write, especially when I started my degree, but this summer is study free summer, and after doing my short fiction course with the OU I feel inspired to get my pen and paper out.
          So here is to the start of a summer of words words words!