My Writing History

Like most writers, I can say that I have always had an interest in writing in some capacity. As far back as I can remember I have been drawn to creating stories. Lainey Kress put up THIS BLOGPOST a while ago talking all about herself as a teenage writer, and her origins with writing as a hobby and possible career path. The post made me want to look back on my own journey as a writer. I wanted to take a little trip down my literary memory lane, and I wanted to bring you along with me. 

And so....

Lauren Carroll....

A Writing Crisis

I'm having a moment.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who has ever had this moment.

So I'm sharing the moment - mainly for self-cathartic reasons.

So I've been working on my book Prince of Blades since last August. The novel is the first in an YA/adult crossover fantasy series and it is my sweet baby cinnamon roll. I have lived and breathed this novel since I first got the idea for it. I'm honestly in love with the characters, the world and the story, and like I mentioned in my last post - I'm currently 70k words through the first draft.

To explain my 'moment'...I need to take a little step back in time to when I first conceived the idea for Prince of Blades.

Come with me if you will...

AuthorTube Work In Progress Tag

I'm not actually on YouTube. I would absolutely love to have a BookTube/AuthorTube channel but I just don't know if I will ever actually set one up. Maybe in the future, who knows? This tag was originally created by Jessi from LifeOfATeenageWriter, I saw it on Lainey's channel (gingerreadslainey) and decided that I wanted to do it here on my blog...so here we are. 

There are ten questions in this tag to help you get to know my current project better, so let's just jump right in with...

On showing up and getting shit done...

So...it's been a hot minute since I last put up a post on this blog, and A LOT has happened since I last wrote anything on here. I've been meaning to come back for a while, but I just haven't had the time.

I want to start MAKING time.

Let's start by talking about what I've been up to recently. The big new thing is I finally started my English and Creative Writing degree and so far I am really enjoying it. This first year has been mainly focused on introducing us to different aspects of creative writing (poetry, fiction and drama). For the 'English' side of the degree we have been studying all sorts of texts from poetry to Jane Eyre (which I LOVE btw). Overall the course has been brilliant so far and I can't believe that I'm almost done with my first year!

When it comes to writing my novel - things have been turbulent. I brainstormed, researched and outlined the book last August-October, and began writing the first draft in November for NaNoWriMo 2017 (more on that later). I won Nano (yay me), and continued to work on the book afterwards. I am currently around halfway through the first draft and sat on 70K words. One thing is FO SHO - this book is already waaaaay too long. Don't worry, I'm aware. There are already huge chunks that I've written and I know I'm going to edit them massively - maybe even cut them entirely. BUT I don't want to go back and edit a single thing until I finish the first draft. I'm a perfectionist, and if I'm constantly looking back I will never move forward - so push forward I must!

CHAAAAAAARGE!

Introductions

So hi everyone :)

I've been meaning to set this blog up for a while now, but haven't had a literal minute to sit down and do it. Now, finally, I've got it up and running so I thought I would introduce myself.

My name is Lauren, I'm (at the time of writing this) 26 years old and I live in rainy North England with my 3-year-old daughter Sophia and our two cats Hamilton and Angelica (any Hamilton the Musical fans in here? WHAT TIME IS IT? SHOWTIME!!)

I've always wanted to be a writer, I've always wrote bits here and there and dream of becoming a professional author for a living. I have had tons of ideas, and apart from a few false starts, I've never really written anything of much substance - academic work aside of course.

So finally, this year I've decided to do just that. It's time to put the pedal to the metal and finally crack on with this dream I have. A book isn't going to write itself right?